LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



I'liaj). .. ^„ Copyright Jfo. 

■Shelf 'Ht 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




Henry Drummond. 



36132 

Library of Congrese 

Iwo Copies Heceiveo 
AUG 18 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

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ORDER DIVISION, 
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Copyright, 1900, by W. B. Conkky Company. 



68732 



V 



3 . 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Preface 5 

Introduction 25 

Biogenesis 75 

Degeneration 107 

Growth 131 

Death 149 

Mortification 179 

Eternal Life 203 

Environment 247 

Conformity to Type 277 

Semi- Parasitism 30s 

Parasitism 325 

Classification 349 



PREFACE. 



No class of works is received with more sus- 
picion, I had almost said derision, than those 
which deal with Science and Religion. Sci- 
ence is tired of reconciliations between two 
things which never should have been con- 
trasted ; Religion is offended by the patronage 
of an ally which it professes not to need ; and 
the critics have rightly discovered that, in 
most cases where Science is either pitted 
against Religion or fused with it, there is some 
fatal misconception to begin with as to the 
scope and province of either. But although 
no initial protest, probably, will save this work 
from the unhappy reputation of its class, the 
thoughtful mind will perceive that the fact of 
its subject-matter being Law — a property pe- 
culiar neither to Science nor to Religion — at 
once places it on a somewhat different footing. 

The real problem I have set myself may be 
stated in a sentence. Is there not reason to 
believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual 
World, hitherto regarded as occupying an en- 
tirely separate province, are simply the Laws 
of the Natural World? Can we identify the 
Natural Laws, or any one of them, in the Spir- 
itual sphere? That vague lines everywhere 

5 



PREFACE. 



run through the Spiritual World is already be- 
Sniinc to be recognized. Is it possible to Imk 

fh^m with those g--t ^if- ^.-hInISi 
the visible universe which we j^f ^ ^e Natura^ 
Laws or are they fundamentally distinct? in 
a word°Is the Supernatural natural or unnat- 

""'l may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these 
quesTions'ln the 'form in which they ^lave^an- 
swered themselves to myself. And I must 
apologize at the outset for personal references 
which but for the clearness they may lend to 
the statement, I would surely avoid. 

It has been my privilege for some years to 
address regularly two very diflerent audiences 
on two ve?y different themes. On week days 
fhave lectured to a class of students on the 
Natural Sciences, and on Sundays to an audi- 
ence consisting for the most part of working- 
men on subjects of a moral and religious char- 
acter I cainot say that this collocation ever 
appeared as a difficulty to myself, but to cer- 
tain of my friends it was more than a problem 
It was solved to me, however at first, by what 
then seemed the necessities of the ^ase-I mi^t 
keep the two departments entirely by them- 
selves. They lay at opposite poles of thought ; 
and for a time I succeeded in keeping the Sci- 
ence and the Religion shut off from one another 
in two separate compartments of my mina 
But gradually the wall of partition showed 
symptoms of giving way. The two fountains 
of knowledge also slowly began to overflow, 
and, finally, their waters met and mingled. 



PREFACE. 7 

The great change was in the compartment 
which held the Religion. It was not that the 
well there was dried; still less that the fer- 
menting waters were washed away by the flood 
of Science. The actual contents remained the 
same. But the crystals of former doctrine 
were dissolved ; and as they precipitated them- 
selves once more in definite forms, I observed 
that the Crystalline System was changed. 
New channels also for outward expression 
opened, and some of the old closed up ; and I 
found the truth running out to my audience on 
the Sundays by the week-day outlets. In other 
words, the subject-matter Religion had taken 
on the method of expression of Science^ and I 
discovered myself enunciating Spiritual Law 
in the exact terms of Biology and Physics. 

Now, this was not simply a scientific color- 
ing given to Religion, the mere freshening of 
the theological air with natural facts and illus- 
trations. It was an entire re-casting of truth. 
And when I came seriously to consider what 
is involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it 
meant essentially the introduction of Natural 
Law into the Spiritual World. It was not, I 
repeat, that new and detailed analogies of 
Phenomena rose into view — although material 
for Parable lies unnoticed and unused on the 
field of recent Science in inexhaustible profu- 
sion. But Law has a still grander function to 
* discharge towards Religion than Parable. 
There is a deeper unity between the two King- 
doms than the analogy of their Phenomena — a 



PREFACE. 



unity which the poet's vision, more quick than 
the theologian's, has already dimly seen:— 

"And verilv many thinkers of this age, 
Aye man^ Christian teachers, half in heayen. 
Are wroni in just my sense, who understood 
Our natural world too insularly as it 
No spiritual counterpart completed it. 
Consummating its meaning, rounding all 
To iustice and perfection, line by line. 
Form by form, nothing single nor alone, _ 
The great blow clenched by the S^^^^^^^l^-^^^ 

The function of Parable in religion is to ex- 
hibit "form by form." Law undertakes the 
profounder task of comparing ' line by Ime. 
Thus Natural Phenomena serve mainly an 
illustrative function in Religion. Natural 
Law on the other hand, could it be traced in 
the Spiritual World, would have an important 
scientific value-it would offer Religion a new 
credential. The effect of the introduction of 
Law among the scattered Phenomena of Na- 
ture has simply been to make Science, to trans- 
form knowledge into eternal truth. The same 
crystallizing touch is needed in Rehgion. Can 
it be said that the Phenomena of the Spiritual 
World are other than scattered? Can we shut 
our eyes to the fact that the religious opinions 
of mankind are in a state of flux? And when 
we regard the uncertainty of current beliefs, 
the wtr of creeds, the havoc of inevitable as 
well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandon- 
ment of early faith by those who would cherish 



PREFACE. 9 

it longer if they could, is it not plain that the 
one thing thinking men are waiting for is the 
introduction of Law among the Phenomena of 
the Spiritual World? When that comes we 
shall offer to such men a truly scientific theol- 
ogy. And the Reign of Law will transform 
tlie whole Spiritual World as it has already 
transformed the Natural World. 

I confess that even when in the first dim vis- 
ion, the organizing hand of Law moved among 
the unordered truths of my Spiritual World, 
poor and scantily-furnished as it was, there 
seemed to come over it the beauty of a trans- 
figuration. The change was as great as from 
the old chaotic world of Pythagoras to the 
symmetrical and harmonious universe of New- 
ton. My Spiritual World before was chaos of 
facts; my Theology, a Pythagorean system 
trying to make the best of Phenomena apart 
from the idea of Law. I make no charge 
against Theology in general. I speak of my 
own. And I say that I saw it to be in many 
essential respects centuries behind every de- 
partment of Science I knew. It was the one 
region still unpossessed by Law. I saw then 
why men of Science distrust Theology; why 
those who have learned to look upon Law as 
Authority grow cold to it — it was the Great 
Exception. 

I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in 
my own mind partly for another reason — to 
show its naturalness. Certainly I never pre- 
meditated anything to myself so objectionable 
and so unwarrantable in itself, as either to 

2 Natural Law 



10 PREFACE. 

read Theology into Science or Science into 
Theology. Nothing could be more artificial 
than to attempt this on the speculative side; 
and it has been a substantial relief to me 
throughout that the idea rose up thus in the 
course of practical work and shaped itself day 
by day unconsciously. It might be charged, 
nevertheless, that I was all the time, whether 
consciously or unconsciously, simply reading 
my Theology into my Science. And as this 
would hopelessly vitiate the conclusions arrived 
at, I must acquit myself at least of the inten- 
tion. Of nothing have I been more fearful 
throughout than of making Nature parallel 
with my own or with any creed. The only 
legitimate questions one dare put to Nature 
are those which concern universal human good 
and the Divine interpretation of things. These 
I conceive may be there actually studied at 
first-hand, and before their purity is soiled by 
human touch. We have Truth in Nature as it 
came from God. And it has to be read with 
the same unbiassed mind, the same open eye, 
the same faith, and the same reverence as all 
other Revelation. All that is found there, 
whatever its place in Theology, whatever its 
orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrow- 
ness or its breadth, we are bound to accept as 
Doctrine from which on the lines of Science 
there is no escape. 

When this presented itself to me as a method, 
I felt it to be due to it — were it only to secure, 
so far as that was possible, that no former bias 
should interfere with the integrity of the re- 



PREFACE. 11 

suits — to begin again at the beginning and re- 
construct my Spiritual World step by step. 
The result of that inquiry, so far as its expres- 
sion in systematic form is concerned, I have 
not given in this book. To reconstruct a Spir- 
itual Religion, or a department of Spiritual 
Religion — for this is all the method can pre- 
tend to — on the lines of Nature would be an 
attempt from which one better equipped in 
both directions might well be pardoned if he 
shrank. My object at present is the humbler 
one of venturing a simple contribution to prac- 
tical Religion along the lines indicated. What 
Bacon predicates of the Natural World, Natura 
enim non nisi parendo vincitur^ is also true, as 
Christ had already told us, of the Spiritual 
World. And I present a few samples of the 
religious teaching referred to formerly as hav- 
ing been prepared under the influence of scien- 
tific ideas, in the hope that they may be useful 
first of all in this direction. 

I would, however, carefully point out that 
though their unsystematic arrangement here 
may create the impression that these papers 
are merely isolated readings in Religion pointed 
by casual scientific truths, they are organically 
connected by a single principle. Nothing 
could be more false both to Science and to 
Religion than attempts to adjust the two 
spheres by making out ingenious points of con- 
tact in detail. The solution of this great ques- 
tion of conciliation, if one may still refer to a 
problem so gratuitous, must be general rather 
than particular. The basis in a common prin- 



12 PREFACE. 

ciple — the Continuity of Law — can alone save 
specific applications from ranking as mere 
coincidences, or exempt them from the reproach 
of being a hybrid between two things which 
must be related by the deepest affinities or re- 
main forever separate. 

To the objection that even a basis in Law is 
no warrant for so great a trespass as the intru- 
sion into another field of thought of the prin- 
ciples of Natural Science, I would reply that in 
this I find I am following a lead which in 
other departments has not only been allowed, 
but has achieved results as rich as they were 
unexpected. What is the Physical Politic of 
Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Nat- 
ural Law to the Political World? What is the 
Biological Sociology of Mr. Herbert Spencer 
but the application of Natural Law to the So- 
cial World? Will it be charged that the splen- 
did achievements of such thinkers are hybrids 
between things which Nature has meant to 
remain apart? Nature usually solves such 
problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism 
is checked by the Law of Sterility. Judged by 
this great Law, these modern developments of 
our knowledge stand uncondemned. Within 
their own sphere the results of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer are far from sterile — the application 
of Biology to Political Economy is already rev- 
olutionizing the Science. If the introduction 
of Natural Law into the Social sphere is no 
violent contradiction, but a genuine and per- 
manent contribution, shall its further extension 
to the Spiritual sphere be counted an extrava- 



PREFACE. 13 

gance? Does not the principle of Continuity 
demand its application in every direction? To 
carry it as a working principle into so lofty a 
region may appear impracticable. Difficulties 
lie on the threshold which may seem, at first 
sight, insurmountable. But obstacles to a true 
method only test its validity. And he who 
honestly faces the task may find relief in feel- 
ing that whatever else of crudeness and imper- 
fection mar it, the attempt is at least in har- 
mony with the thought and movement of his 
time. 

That these papers were not designed to 
appear in a collective form, or, indeed, to 
court the more public light at all, needs no dis- 
closure. They are published out of regard to 
the wish of known and unknown friends by 
whom, when in a fugitive form, they were re- 
ceived with so curious an interest as to make 
one feel already that there are minds which 
such forms of truth may touch. In making 
the present selection, partly from manuscript, 
and partly from articles already published, I 
have been guided less by the wish to constitute 
the papers a connected series than to exhibit 
the application of the principle in various 
direction. They will be found, therefore, of 
unequal interest and value, according to the 
standpoint from which they are regarded. 
Thus some are designed with a directly prac- 
tical and popular bearing, others being more 
expository, and slightly apologetic in tone. 
The risk of combining two objects so very 
different is somewhat serious. But, for the 



14 PREFACE. 

reason named, having taken this responsibil- 
ity, the only compensation I can offer is to in- 
dicate which of the papers incline to the 
one side or to the other. ** Degeneration,'' 
"Growth," ** Mortification," ** Conformity to 
Type," ''Semi- Parasitism," and ''Parasitism'* 
belong to the more practical order ; and while 
one or two are intermediate, "Biogenesis," 
"Death," and "Eternal-Life!" may be offered 
to those who find the atmosphere of the former 
uncongenial. It will not disguise itself, how- 
ever, that, owing to the circumstances in which 
they were prepared, all the papers are more or 
less practical in their aim; so that to the 
merely philosophical reader there is little to be 
offered except— and that only with the greatest 
diffidence— the Introductory chapter. 

In the Introduction, which the general reader 
may do well to ignore, I have briefly stated 
the case for Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World. The extension of Analogy to Laws, 
or rather the extension of the Laws them- 
selves, so far as known to me, is new; and I 
cannot hope to have escaped the mistakes and 
misadventures of a first exploration in an un- 
surveyed land. So general has been the survey 
that I have not even paused to define specific- 
ally to what departments of the Spiritual 
World exclusively the principle is to be ap- 
plied. The danger of making a new principle 
apply too widely inculcates here the utmost 
caution. One thing is certain, and I state it 
pointedly, the application of Natural Law to 
the Spiritual World has decided and necessary 



PREFACE. 15 

limits. And if elsewhere with undue enthusi- 
asm I seem to magnify the principle at stake, 
the exaggeration — like the extreme ampli- 
fication of the moon's disk when near the hori- 
zon — must be charged to that almost necessary 
aberration of light which distorts every new 
idea while it is yet slowly climbing to its 
zenith. 

In what follows the Introduction, except in 
the setting, there is nothing new. I trust 
there is nothing new. When I began to fol- 
low out these lines, I had no idea where they 
would lead me. I was prepared, nevertheless, 
at least for the time, to be loyal to the method 
throughout, and share with Nature whatever 
consequences might ensue. But in almost 
every case, after stating what appeared to be 
the truth in words gathered directly from the 
lips of Nature, I was sooner or later startled 
by a certain similarity in the general idea to 
something I had heard before, and this often 
developed in a moment, and when I was least 
expecting it into recognition of some familiar 
article of faith. I was not watching for this 
result. I did not begin by tabulating the doc- 
trines, as I did the Laws of Nature, and then 
proceed with the attempt to pair them. The 
majority of them $eemed at first too far re- 
moved from the natural world even to suggest 
this. Still less did I begin with doctrines and 
work downwards to find their relations in the 
natural sphere. It was the opposite process 
entirely. I ran up the Natural Law as far as 
it would go, and the appropriate doctrine sel- 



16 PREFACE. 

dom even loomed in sight till I had reached the 
top. Then it burst into view in a single mo- 
ment. 

I can scarcely now say whether in those 
moments I was more overcome with thankful- 
ness that Nature was so like Revelation, or 
more filled with wonder that Revelation was 
so like Nature. Nature, it is true, is a part of 
Revelation — a much greater part doubtless 
than is yet believed — and one could have antic- 
ipated nothing but harmony here. But that a 
derived Theology, in spite of the venerable 
verbiage which has gathered round it, should 
be at bottom, and in all cardinal respects so 
faithful a transcript of ''the truth as it is in 
Nature" came as a surprise, and to me at least 
as a rebuke. How, under the rigid necessity 
of incorporating in its system much that seemed 
nearly unintelligible, and much that was barely 
credible. Theology has succeeded so perfectly 
in adhering through good report and ill to 
what in the main are truly the lines of Nature, 
awakens a new admiration for those who con- 
structed and kept this faith. But however 
nobly is has held its ground, Theology must 
feel to-day that the modern world calls for a 
further proof. Nor will the best Theology 
resent this demand; it also demands it. The- 
ology is searching on every hand for another 
echo of the Voice of which Revelation also is 
the echo, that out of the mouths of two wit- 
nesses its truths should be established. That 
other echo can only come from Nature. Hith- 
erto its voice has been muffled. But now that 



PREFACE. 17 

Science has made the world around articulate, 
it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. 
In the first place, it offers to corroborate The- 
ology, in the second, to purify it. 

If the removal of suspicion from Theology is 
of urgent moment, not less important is the 
removal of its adulterations. These suspicions, 
many of them at least, are new ; in a sense they 
mark progress. But the adulterations are the 
artificial accumulations of centuries of uncon- 
trolled speculation. They are the necessary 
result of the old method and the warrant for 
its revision — they mark the impossibility of pro- 
gress without the guiding and restraining hand 
of Law. The felt exhaustion of the former 
method, the want of corroboration for the old 
evidence, the protest of reason against the 
monstrous overgrowths which conceal the real 
lines of truth, these summon us to the search 
for a surer and more scientific system. With 
truths of the theological order, with dogmas 
which often depend for their existence on a 
particular exegesis, with propositions which rest 
for their evidence upon a balance of probabil- 
ities, or upon the weight of authority; with 
doctrines which every age and nation may 
make or unmake, which each sect may tamper 
with, and which even the individual ma}^ modi- 
fy for himself, a second court of appeal has 
become an imperative necessity. 

Science, therefore, may yet have to be called 
upon to arbitrate at some points between con- 
flicting creeds. And while there are some 
departments of Theology where its jurisdic- 



18 



PREFACE. 



tion cannot be sought, there are others in 
which Nature may yet have to define the con- 
tents as well as the limits of belief. 

What I would desire especially as a thought- 
ful consideration of the method The applica- 
tions ventured upon here may be successful or 
unsuccessful. But they would more than 
satisfy me if they suggested a method to others 
whosJ less clumsy hands might work it out 
more profitably. For I am convinced of the 
fertility of such a method at the present time^ 
It is recognized by all that the younger and 
ibler minds of this age find the most serious 
difficulty in accepting or retaining the ordma^ 
forms of belief. Especially is this true of 
those whose culture is scientific And the 
reason is palpable. No man can study modern 
Science without a change commg over Ji^ v ^w 
of truth. What impresses him about Nature 
is its solidity. He is there standing upon actual 
t^ingtamJng fixed laws. And the integrity 
of the scientific method so seizes him that all 
other forms of truth begin to appear compar- 
atively unstable. He did not know before 
that any form of truth could so hold him; and 
the immediate effect is to lessen his interest m 
all that stands on other bases. This he feds 
in spite of himself; he struggles against it in 
vain- and he finds perhaps to his alarm that 
he is drifting fast into what looks at first like 
lire Positivilm. This is an inevitable result 
of the scientific training. It is quite erroneous 
to suopose that science ever overthrows Faith 
. if by 'that is implied that any natural truth can 



PREFACE. 19 

oppose successfully any single spiritual truth. 
Science cannot overthrow Faith ; but it shakes 
it. Its own doctrines, grounded in Nature, are 
so certain, that the truths of Religion, resting 
to most men on Authority, are felt to be 
strangely insecure. The difficulty, therefore, 
which men of Science feel about Religion is 
real and inevitable, and in so far as Doubt is a 
conscientious tribute to the inviolability of 
Nature it is entitled to respect. 

None but those who have passed through it 
can appreciate the radical nature of the change 
wrought by Science in the whole mental atti- 
tude of its disciples. What they really cry out 
for in Religion is a new standpoint — a stand- 
point like their own. The one hope, therefore, 
for Science is more Science. Again, to quote 
Bacon — we shall hear enough from the moderns 
b)'- and by^ — **This I dare affirm in knowledge of 
Nature, that a little natural philosophy, and 
the first entrance into it, doth dispose the 
opinion to atheism; but, on the other side, 
much natural philosophy, and wading deep 
into it, will bring about men's minds to 
religion.*'* 

The application of similia similibus curantur 
was never more in point. If this is a disease, 
it is the disease of Nature, and the cure is 
more Nature. For what is this disquiet in the 
breasts of men, but the loyal fear that Nature 
is being violated? Men must oppose with 
every energy they possess what seems to them 



♦"Meditationes Sacrse," x. 



20 PREFACE. ^"^ 

to oppose the eternal course of things. And 
the first step in their deliverance must be not 
to ''reconcile" Nature and Religion, but to 
exhibit Nature and Religion. Even to con- 
vince them that there is no controversy between 
Religion and Science is insufficient. A mere 
flag of truce, in the nature of the case, is here 
impossible; at least, it is only possible so long 
as neither party is sincere. No man knows 
the splendor of scientific achievement or cares 
for it, no man who feels the solidity of its 
method or works with it, can remain neutral 
with regard to Religion. He must either 
extend his method into it, or, if that is impos- 
sible, oppose it to the knife. On the other 
hand, no one who knows the content of Chris- 
tianity, or feels the universal need of a Religion, 
can stand idly by while the intellect of his age 
is slowly divorcing itself from it. What is 
required, therefore, to draw Science and 
Religion together again — for they began the 
centuries hand in hand — is the disclosure of 
the naturalness of the supernatural. Then, 
and not till then, will men see how true it is, 
that to be loyal to all of Nature, they must be 
loyal to the part defined as Spiritual. No 
science contributes to another without receiv- 
ing a reciprocal benefit. And even as the con- 
tribution of Science to Religion is the vindica- 
tion of the naturalness of the Supernatural, so 
the gift of Religion to Science is the demonstra- 
tion of the supernaturalness of the Natural. 
Thus, as the Supernatural becomes slowly 
Natural, will also the Natural become slowly 



PREFACE. 21 

Supernatural, until in the impersonal authority 
of Law men everywhere recognize the Author- 
ity of God. 

To those who already find themselves fully 
nourished on the older forms of truth, I do not 
commend these pages. They will find them 
superfluous. Nor is there any reason why 
they should mingle with light which is already 
clear the distorting rays of a foreign expres- 
sion. 

But to those who are feeling their way to a 
Christian life, haunted now by a sense of 
instability in the foundations of their faith, 
now brought to bay by specific doubt at one 
point raising, as all doubt does, the question 
for the whole, I would hold up a light which 
has often been kind to me. There is a sense 
of solidity about a Law of Nature which 
belongs to nothing else in the world. Here, 
at last, amid all that is shifting, is one thing 
sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiassed, 
unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, 
by doubt or fear ; one thing that holds on its 
way to me eternally, incorruptible, and unde- 
filed. This, more than anything else, makes 
one eager to see the Reign of Law traced in 
the Spiritual Sphere. And should this seem 
to some to offer only a surer, but not a higher 
Faith ; should the better ordering of the Spirit- 
ual World appear to satisfy the intellect at the 
sacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love; 
especially should it seem to substitute a Reign 
of Law and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace 



22 PREFACE. 

and a Personal God, I will say, with Brown- 
ing,— 

"I spoke as I saw. 
I report, as a man may of God's work-all's Love, yet 

Now nay'^rwn the judgeship Helent me. Each faculty 

To perSve Him. has gained an abyss where a dewdrop 
was asked.*' 



ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION. 



[For the sake of the general reader who may desire 
to pass at once to the practical application, the follow- 
ing outline of the Introduction — devoted rather to gen- 
eral principles — is here presented.] 

PART I. 

Natural Law in the Spiritual Sphere. 

1. The growth of the Idea of Law. 

2. Its gradual extension throughout every department 

of Knowledge. 

3. Except one. Religion hitherto the Great Exception. 

Why so? 

4. Previous attempts to trace analogies between the 

Natural and Spiritual spheres. These have been 
limited to analogies between Phenomena; and 
are useful mainly as illustrations. Analogies of 
Law would also have a Scientific value. 
6. Wherein that value would consist. (i)The Scientific 
demand of the age would be met; (2) Greater 
clearness would be introduced into Religion prac- 
tically; (3) Theology, instead of resting on 
Authority, would rest equally on Nature. 

PART IL 

The Law of Continuity. 

A priori argument for Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World. 

1. The Law Discovered. 

2. " Defined. 

3. •' Applied. 

4. The objection answered that the material of the 

Natural and Spiritual worlds being different they 
must be under different Laws. 

5. The existence of Laws id the Spiritual World other 

than the Natural Laws (i) improbable, (2) unnec- 
essary, (3) unknown. Qualification. 

6. The Spiritual not the projection upwards of the 

Natural; but the Natural the projection down- 
wards of the Spiritual. 
23 



"This method turns aside from the hypotheses not to 
be tested by any known logical canon familiar to science, 
whether the hypothesis claims support from intuition, 
aspiration or general plausibility. And, again, this 
method turns aside from ideal standards which avow 
themselves to be lawless, which profess to transcend the 
field of law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for 
us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in 
that region of science (not physical, but moral and social 
science), where we are free to use our intelligence in the 
methods known to us as intelligible logic, methods 
which the intellect can analyze. When you confront 
us with hypotheses, however sublime and however 
affecting, if they cannot be stated in terms of the rest of 
our knowledge, if they are disparate to that world of 
sequence and sensation which to us is the ultimate base 
of all our real knowledge, then we shake our heads and 
turn aside." 

Frederick Harrison. 



24 



INTRODUCTION. 



"Ethical science is already forever completed, so far 
as her general outline and main principles are con- 
cerned, and has been, as it were, waiting for physical 
science to come up with her." — Paradoxical Philosophy. 



Natural Law is a new word. It is the last 
and the most magnificent discovery of science. 
No more telling proof is open to the modern 
world of the greatness of the idea than the 
greatness of the attempts which have always 
been made to justify it. In the earlier centu- 
ries, before the birth of science, Phenomena 
were studied alone. The world then was a 
chaos, a collection of single, isolated, and inde- 
pendent facts. Deeper thinkers saw, indeed, 
that relations must subsist between these facts, 
but the Reign of Law was never more to the 
ancients than a far-off vision. Their philoso- 
phies, conspicuously those of the Stoics and 
Pythagoreans, heroically sought to marshal the 
discrete materials of the universe into think- 
able form, but from these artificial and fantas- 
tic systems nothing remains to us now but an 
ancient testimony to the grandeur of that har- 
mony which they failed to reach. 

25 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

With Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, the 
first regular lines of the universe began to be 
discerned. When Nature yielded to Newton 
her great secret, Gravitation was felt to be not 
greater as a fact in itself than as a revelation 
that Law was fact. And thenceforth the 
search for individual Phenomena gave way 
before the larger study of their relations. The 
pursuit of Law became the passion of science. 

What that discovery of Law has done for 
Nature, it is impossible to estimate. As a 
mere spectacle the universe to-day discloses a 
beauty so transcendent that he who disciplines 
himself by scientific work finds it an over- 
whelming reward simply to behold it. In these 
Laws one stands face to face with truth, solid 
and unchangeable. Each single Law is an 
instrument of scientific research, simple in its 
adjustments, universal in its applications, in- 
fallible in its results. And despite the limita- 
tions of its sphere on every side Law is still 
the largest, richest, and surest source of human 
knowledge. 

It is not necessary for the present to more 
than lightly touch on definitions of Natural 
Law. The Duke of Argyll * indicates five 
senses in which the word is used, but we may 
content ourselves here by taking it in its most 
simple and obvious significance. The funda- 
mental conception of Law is an ascertained 
working sequence of constant order among the 
Phenomena of Nature. This impression of 



♦ "Reijsrn of Law," chap. ii. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Law as order it is important to receive in its 
simplicity, for the idea is often corrupted by 
having attached to it erroneous views of cause 
and effect. In its true sense Natural Law 
predicates nothing of causes. The Laws of 
Nature are simply statements of the orderly 
condition of things in Nature, what is found in 
Nature by a sufficient number of competent 
observers. What these Laws are in them- 
selves is not agreed. That they have any 
absolute existence even is far from certain. 
They are relative to man in his many limita- 
tions, and represent for him the constant ex- 
pression of what he may always expect to find 
in the world around him. But that they have 
any casual connection with the things around 
him is not to be conceived. The Natural Laws 
originate nothing, sustain nothing; they are 
merely responsible for uniformity in sustaining 
what has been originated and what is being 
sustained. They are modes of operation, there- 
fore, not operators; processes, not powers. 
The Law of Gravitation, for instance, speaks 
to science only of process. It has no light to 
offer as to itself. Newton did not discover 
Gravity — that is not discovered yet. He dis- 
covered its Law, which is Gravitation, but that 
tells us nothing of its origin, of its nature, or 
of its cause. 

The Natural Laws then are great lines run- 
ning not only through the world, but, as we 
now know, through the universe, reducing it 
like parallels of latitude to intelligent order. 
In themselves, be it once more repeated, they 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

may have no more absolute existence than par- 
allels of latitude. But they exist for us. They 
are drawn for us to understand the part by 
some Hand that drew the whole ; so drawn, 
perhaps, that, understanding the part, we too 
in time may learn to understand the whole. 
Now the inquiry we propose to ourselves re- 
solves into the simple question. Do these lines 
stop with what we call the Natural sphere? Is 
it not possible that they may lead further? Is 
it probable that the Hand which ruled them 
gave up the work where most of all they were 
required? Did that Hand divide the world 
into two, a cosmos and a chaos, the higher 
being the chaos? With Nature as the symbol 
of all harmony and beauty that is known to 
man, must we still talk of the supernatural, 
not as a convenient word, but as a different 
order of world, an unintelligible world, where 
the Reign of Mystery supersedes the Reign of 
Law? 

This question, let it be carefully observed, 
applies to Laws not to Phenomena. That the 
Phenomena of the Spiritual World are in anal- 
ogy with the Phenomena of the Natural World 
requires no restatement. Since Plato enunci- 
ated his doctrine of the Cave or of the twice- 
divided line; since Christ spake in parables; 
since Plotinus wrote of the world as an imaged 
image; since the mysticism of Swedenborg; 
since Bacon and Pascal; since *' Sartor Resar- 
tus,** and ''In Memoriam," it has been all but 
a commonplace with thinkers that "the invis- 
ible things of God from the creation of the 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made. " Milton's question — 

"What if earth 
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
Each to other like more than on earth is thought?' ' 

is now superfluous. *'In our doctrine of repre- 
sentations and correspondences," says Sweden- 
borg, "we shall treat of both these symbolical 
and typical semblances, and of the astonishing 
things that occur, I will not say in the living 
body only, but throughout Nature, and which 
correspond so entirely to supreme and spiritual 
things, that one would swear that the physical 
world was purely symbolical of the spiritual 
world.'** And Carlyle: **A11 visible things 
are emblems. What thou seest is not there on 
its own account; strictly speaking, it is not 
there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and 
to represent some idea and body it forth. ' ' f 

But the analogies of Law are a totally differ- 
ent thing from the analogies of Phenomena, 
and have a very different value. To say gen- 
erally, with Pascal, that **La nature est une 
image de la grace, ' ' is merely to be poetical. 
The function of Hervey's ''Meditations in a 
Flower Garden," or, Flavel's "Husbandry 
Spiritualized," is mainly homiletical. That 
such works have an interest is not to be denied. 
The place of parable in teaching, and especially 
after the sanction of the greatest of Teachers, 
must always be recognized. The very neces- 

* "Animal Kingdom." 

t "Sartor Resartus," 1858 ed., p. 43. 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

sities of language indeed demand this method 
of presenting truth. The temporal is the husk 
and framework of the eternal, and thoughts 
can be uttered only through things.* 

But analogies between Phenomena bear the 
same relation to analogies of Law that Phenom- 
ena themselves bear to Law. The light of 
Law on truth, as we have seen, is an im- 
mense advance upon the light of Phenomena. 
The discovery of Law is simply the discovery 
of Science. And if the analogies of Natural 
Law can be extended to the Spiritual World, 
that whole region at once falls within the 
domain of science and secures a basis as well as 
an illumination in the constitution and course 
of Nature. All, therefore, that has been 
claimed for parable can be predicated a fortiori 
of this— with the addition that a proof on the 
basis of Law would want no criterion possessed 
by the most advanced science. 

That the validity of analogy generally has 
been seriously questioned one must frankly 
own. Doubtless there is much difficulty and 

* Even parable, however, has always been considered to 
have attached to it a measure of evidential as well as of il^jstrat- 
ive value. Thus: "The parable or other analogy to spiritual 
truth appropriated from the world of nature or "lan, is not 
merely illustrative, but also in some sort proof. . It \spot merely 
that these analogies assist to ^^ke the truth int^ ligible or. f 
intelligible before, present it more vividly to the ^ind, which is 
all thSt some will allow them. Their power lies deeper than 
this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all ^^^x^^^J^.^'^^. 
all deeper minds have delighted to trace, between the natura^ 
and spiritual worlds, so that analogies from the ^^st are felt to 
be something more than illustrations l^^PP^^y ^^^f.^^H^^^^^^i^^?: 
chosen. They are arguments, and may be alleged »« witnesses, 
the world of nature being throughout a witness ^^r Xh^ ^l^orX^oi 
spirit, proceeding from the same hand, g^-owmg out of the same 
root, knd being constituted for that very end." (Archbishop 
Trench: ^'Parables," pp. 12, 13.) 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

even liability to gross error in attempting to 
establish analogy in specific cases. The value 
of the likeness appears differenth'' to different 
minds, and in discussing an individual instance 
questions of relevancy will invariably crop up. 
Of course, in the language of John Stuart Mill, 
''when the analogy can be proved, the argu- 
ment founded upon it cannot be resisted. " * 
But so great is the difEculty of proof that many 
are compelled to attach the most inferior 
weight to analogy as a method of reasoning. 
''Analogical evidence is generally more success- 
ful in silencing objections than in evincing 
trnth. Though it rarely refutes it frequently 
repels refutation ; like those weapons which 
though they cannot kill the enemy, wull ward 
liis blows. . . . It must be allowed that analogi- 
cal evidence is at least but a feeble support, 
and is hardly ever honored with the name of 
proof. " f Other authorities on the other hand, 
such as Sir William Hamilton, admit analogy 
to a primary place in logic and regard it as the 
A^ery basis of induction. 

But, fortunately, we are spared all discussion 
on this worn subject, for two cogent reasons. 
For one thing. We do not demand of Nature 
directly to prove Religion, That was never its 
function. Its function is to interpret. And this, 
after all is possibly the most fruitful proof. The 
best proof of a thing is that we see it ; if we do 
not see it, perhaps proof will not convince us of 
it. It is the want of the discerning faculty, the 



* Miirs "Logfic," vol. ii. p. 96. 

t Campbell's "Rhetoric," vol. i. p. 114. 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

clairvoyant power of seeing the eternal in the 
temporal, rather than the failure of the reason, 
that begets the sceptic. But secondly, and more 
particularly, a significant circumstance has to 
be taken into account, which, though it will 
appear more clearly afterwards, may be stated 
here at once. The position we have been led 
to take up is not that the Spiritual Laws are 
analogous to the Natural Laws, but that they 
are the same Laws. It is not a question of 
analogy but of identity. The Natural Laws 
are not the shadows or images of the Spiritual 
in the same sense as autumn is emblematical 
of Decay, or the falling leaf of Death. The 
Natural Laws, as the Law of Continuity might 
,well warn us, do not stop with the visible and 
then give place to a new set of Laws bearing a 
strong similitude to them. The Laws of the 
invisible are the same Laws, projections of the 
natural not supernatural. Analagous Phenom- 
ena are not the fruit of parallel Laws, but of 
the same Laws — Laws which at one end, as it 
were, may be dealing with Matter, at the other 
end with Spirit. As there will be some incon- 
venience, however, in dispensing with the 
word analogy, we shall continue occasionally 
to employ it. Those who apprehend the real 
relation will mentally substitute the larger 
term. 

Let us now look for a moment at the present 
state of the question. Can it be said that the 
Laws of the Spiritual World are in any sense 
considered even to have analogies with the 
Natural World? Here and there certainly one 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

finds an attempt, and a successful attempt, to 
exhibit on a rational basis one or two of the 
great Moral Principles of the Spiritual World. 
But the Physical World has not yet been 
appealed to. Its magnificent system of Laws 
remains outside, and its contribution mean- 
while is either silently ignored or purposely set 
aside. The Physical, it is said, is too remote 
from the Spiritual. The Moral World may 
afford a basis for religious truth, but even this 
is often the baldest concession; while the 
appeal to the Physical universe is everywhere 
dismissed as, on the face of it, irrelevant and 
unfruitful. From the scientific side, again, 
nothing has been done to court a closer fellow- 
ship. Science has taken theology at its own 
estimate. It is a thing apart. The Spiritual 
World is not only a different world, but a 
different kind of a world, a world arranged on 
a totally different principle, under a different 
governmental scheme. 

The Reign of Law has gradually crept into 
every department of Nature, transforming 
knowledge everywhere into Science. The 
process goes on, and Nature slowly appears 
to us as one great unity, until the borders of 
the Spiritual World are reached. There the 
"^vaw of Continuity ceases, and the harmony 
oreaks down. And men who have learned 
their elementary lessons truly from the alpha- 
bet of the lower Laws, going on to seek a 
higher knowledge, are suddenly confronted 
with the Great Exception. 

Even those who have examined most care- 

3 Natural Law 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

fully the relations of the Natural and the Spirit- 
ual, seem to have committed themselves delib- 
erately to a final separation in matters of Law. 
It is a surprise to find such a v^^riter as Horace 
Bushnell, for instance, describing the Spiritual 
World as ''another system of nature incom- 
municably separate from ours," and further 
defining it thus: '*God has, in fact, erected 
another and higher system, that of spiritual 
being and government for which nature exists; 
a system not under the law of cause and effect, 
but ruled and marshalled under other kinds of 
laws."* Few men have shown more insight 
than Bushnell in illustrating Spiritual truth 
from the Natural World; but he has not only 
failed to perceive the analogy with regard to 
Law, but emphatically denies it. 

In the recent literature of this whole region 
there nowhere seems any advance upon the 
position of ''Nature and the Supernatural." 
All are agreed in speaking of Nature and the 
Supernatural. Nature in the Supernatural, so 
far as Laws are concerned, is still an unknown 
truth. 

"The Scientific Basis of Faith" is a sug~ 
gestive title. The accomplished author an- 
nounces that the object of his investigation is 
to show that the "world of nature and mind, 
as made known by science, constitute a basis 
and a preparation for that highest moral and 
spiritual life of man, which is evoked by the 
self- revelation of God. "f On the whole, Mr. 

* "Nature an^ the Supernatural," p. 19. 

t '*The Scientific Basis of Faith." By J. J^ Murphy, p. 466. 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

Murphy seems to be more philosophical and 
more profound in his view of the relation of 
science and religion than any writer of modern 
times. His conception of religion is broad 
and lofty, his acquaintance with science ade- 
quate. He makes constant, admirable, and 
often original use of analogy; and yet, in 
spite of the promise of this quotation, he has 
failed to find any analogy in that department 
of Law where surely, of all others, it might 
most reasonably be looked for. In the broad 
subject even of the analogies of what he defines 
as ** evangelical religion'' with Nature, Mr. 
Murphy discovers nothing. Nor can this be 
traced either to short-sight or over-sight. The 
subject occurs to him more than once, and he 
deliberately dismisses it — dismisses it not 
merely as unfruitful, but with a distinct denial 
of its relevancy. The memorable paragraph 
from Origen which forms the text of Btitler's 
* 'Analogy, " he calls "this shallow and false 
saying."* He says: *' The designation of But- 
ler's scheme of religious philosophy ought then 
to be the analogy of religion, legal and evan- 
gelical, to the constitution of nature. But 
does this give altogether a true meaning? 
Does this double analogy really exist? If 
justice is natural law among beings having a 
moral nature, there is the closest analogy 
between the constitution of nature and merely 
legal religion. Legal religion is only the 
extension of natural justice into a future life. 

*Op. cit,, p. 333. 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

But is this true of evangelical religion? 
Have the doctrines of Divine grace any similar 
support in the analogies of nature? I trow 
not.* And with reference to a specific ques- 
tion, speaking of immortality, he asserts that 
*'the analogies of mere nature are opposed to 
the doctrine of immortality, "t With regard to 
Butler's great work in this department, it is 
needless at this time of day to point out that 
his aims did not lie exactly in this direction. 
He did not seek to indicate analogies between 
religion and the constitution and course of 
Nature. His theme was, ''The Analogy of 
Religion to the constitution and course of 
Nature. '* And although he pointed out direct 
analogies of Phenomena, such as those between 
the metamorphoses of insects and the doctrine 
of a future state ; and although he showed that 
''the natural and moral constitution and gov- 
ernment of the world are so connected as to 
make up together but one scheme, ''J his real 
intention was not so much to construct argu- 
ments as to repel objections. His emphasis 
accordingly was laid upon the difficulties of the 
two schemes rather than on their positive lines; 
and so thoroughly has he made out his point, 
that, as is well known, the effect upon many 
has been, not to lead them to accept the Spirit- 
ual World on the ground of the Natural, but 
to make them despair of both. Butler lived at 
a time when defense was more necessary than 
construction, when the materials for construc- 
tion were scarce and insecure, and when, 

*Ibid., p. 333. tlbid.» p. 331. t" Analogy," chap. vii. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

besides, some of the things to be defended 
were quite incapable of defense. Notwith- 
standing this, his influence over the whole 
field since has been unparalleled. 

After all, then, the Spiritual World, as it 
appears at this moment, is outside Natural 
Law. Theology continues to be considered, as 
it has always been, a thing apart. It remains 
still a stupendous and splendid construction, 
but on lines altogether its own. Now is The- 
ology to be blamed for this? Nature has been 
long in speaking; even yet its voice is low, 
sometimes inaudible. Science is the true de- 
faulter, for Theology had to wait patiently for 
its development. As the highest of the sci- 
ences, Theology in the order of evolution 
should be the last of all into rank. It is re- 
served for it to perfect the final harmony. 
Still, if it continues longer to remain a thing 
apart, with increasing reason will be such pro- 
tests as this of the ''Unseen Universe," when, 
in speaking of a view of miracles held by an 
older Theology, it declares: — ''If he submits 
to be guided by such interpreters, each intelli- 
gent being will forever continue to be baffled 
in any attempt to explain these phenomena, 
because they are said to have no physical rela- 
tion to anything that went before or that fol- 
lowed after; in fine, they are made to form a 
universe within a universe, a portion cut off 
by an insurmountable barrier from the domain 
of scientific inquiry."* 



"Unseen Universe," 6th ed , pp. 89, 90. 



38 INTRODUCTION. 

This is the secret of the present decadence 
of Religion in the world of Science. For Sci- 
ence can hear nothing of a Great Exception. 
Constructions on unique lines, ''portions cut 
off by an insurmountable barrier from the do- 
main of scientific inquiry, ' ' it dare not recog- 
nize. Nature has taught it this lesson, and 
Nature is right. It is the province of Science 
to vindicate Naiture here at any hazard. But 
in blaming Theology for its intolerance, it has 
been betrayed into an intolerance less excus- 
able. It has pronounced upon it too soon. 
What if Religion be yet brought within the 
sphere of Law? Law is the revelation of time. 
One by one slowly through the centuries the 
Sciences have crystallized into geometrical 
form, each form not only perfect in itself, but 
perfect in its relation to all other forms. 
Many forms had to be perfected before the 
form of the Spiritual. The Inorganic has to 
be worked out before the Organic, the Natural 
before the Spiritual. Theology at present has 
merely an ancient and provisional philosophic 
form. By and by it will be seen whether it be 
not susceptible of another. For Theology must 
pass through the necessary stages of progress, 
like any other science. The method of science- 
making is now fully established. In almost 
all cases the natural history and development 
are the same. Take, for example, the case of 
Geology. A century ago there was none. 
Science went out to look for it, and brought 
back a Geology which, if Nature were a har- 
mony, had falsehood written almost on its face. 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

It was the Geology of Catastrophism, a Geol- 
ogy so out of line with Nature, as revealed by 
the other sciences, that a priori grounds a 
thoughtful mind might have been justified in 
dismissing it as a final form of any science. 
And its fallacy was soon and thoroughly ex- 
posed. The advent of modified uniformitarian 
principles all but banished the word catastro- 
phe from science, and marked the birth of 
Geology as we know it now. Geology, that is 
to say, had fallen at last into the great scheme 
of Law. Religious doctrines, many of them 
at least, have been up to this time all but as 
catastrophic as the old Geology. They are not 
on the lines of Nature as we have learned to 
decipher her. If any one feel, as Science com- 
plains that it feels, that the lie of things in the 
Spiritual World as arranged by Theology is not 
in harmony with the world around, is not, in 
short, scientific, he is entitled to raise the 
question whether this be really the final form 
of those departments of Theology to which his 
complaint refers. He is justified, moreover in 
demanding a new investigation with all mod- 
ern methods and resources; and Science is 
bound by its principles not less than by the 
lessons of its own past, to suspend judgment 
till the last attempt is made. The success of 
such an attempt will be looked forward to with 
hopefulness or fearfulness just in proportion^ 
to one's confidence in Nature — in proportion to 
one's belief in the divinity of man and in the 
divinity of things. If there is any, truth in the 
unity of Nature, if that supreme principle of 



40 INTRODUCTION. 



g 



Continuity which is growing in splendor with 
every discovery of science, the conclusion is 
foregone. If there is any foundation for The- 
ology, if the phenomena of the Spiritual World 
are real, in the nature of things they ought to 
come into the sphere of Law. Such is at once 
the demand of Science upon Religion and the 
prophecy that it can and shall be fulfilled. 

The Botany of Linaeus, a purely artificial 
system, was a splendid contribution to human 
knowledge, and did more in its day to enlarge 
the view of the vegetable kingdom than all 
that had gone before. But all artificial systems 
must pass away. None knew better than the 
great Swedish naturalist himself that his sys- 
tem, being artificial, was but provisional. 
Nature must be read in its own light. And 
as the botanical field became more luminous, 
the system of Jussieu and De Candolle slowly 
emerged as a native growth, unfolded itself 
as naturally as the petals of one of its own flow- 
ers, and forcing itself upon men's intelligence 
as the very voice of Nature, banished the 
Linsean system forever. It were unjust to say 
that the present Theology is as artificial as the 
system of Linaeus ; in many particulars it wants 
but a fresh expression to make it in the most 
modern sense scientific. But if it has a basis 
in the constitution and course of Nature, that 
basis has never been adequately shown. It 
has depended on Authority rather than on 
Law; and a new basis must be sought and 
found if it is to be presented to those with 
whom Law alone is Authority. 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

It is not, of course, to be inferred that the 
scientific method will ever abolish the radical 
distinctions of the Spiritual World. True sci- 
ence proposes to itself no such general leveling 
in any department. Within the unity of the 
whole there must always be room, for the char- 
acteristic differences of the parts, and those 
tendencies of thought at the present time which 
ignore such distinctions, in their zeal for sim- 
plicity really create confusion. As has been 
well said by Mr. Hutton: ''Any attempt to 
merge the distinctive characteristic of a higher 
science in a lower — of chemical changes in 
mechanical — of physiological in chemical — 
above all, of mental changes in physiological 
— is a neglect of the radical assumption of all 
science, because it is an attempt to deduce 
representations, — or rather misrepresentations 
— of one kind of phenomenon from a concep- 
tion of another kind which does not contain it, 
and must have it implicitly and illicitly smug- 
gled in before it can be extracted out of it. 
Hence, instead of increasing our means of rep- 
resenting the universe to ourselves without 
the detailed examination of particulars, such 
a procedure leads to misconstructions of fact 
on the basis of an imported theory, and gener- 
ally ends in forcibly perverting the least-known 
science to the type of the better known. "* 

What is wanted is simply a unity of concep- 
tion, but not such a unity of conception as 
should be founded on an absolute identity of 
phenomenon. This latter might, indeed, be a 

* "Essays," vol. i., p. 40. 
4 Natural Law 



42 INTRODUCTION. 

unity, but it would be a very tame one. The 
perfection of unity is attained where there is 
infinite variety of phenomena, infinite com- 
plexity of relation, but great simplicity of 
Law. Science will be complete when all 
known phenomena can be arranged in one 
vast circle in which a few well-known Laws 
shall form the radii — these radii at once separ- 
ating and uniting, separating into particular 
groups, yet uniting all to a common centre. 
To show that the radii for some of the most 
characteristic phenomena of the Spiritual 
World are already drawn within that circle by 
science is the main object of the papers which 
follow. There will be found an attempt to 
re-state a few of the more elementary facts of 
the Spiritual Life in terms of Biology. Any 
argument for Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World may be best tested in the a posteriori 
form. And although the succeeding pages are 
not designated in the first instance to prove a 
principle, they may yet be entered here as evi- 
dence. The practical test is a severe one, but 
on that account all the more satisfactory. 

And what will be gained if the point be 
made out? Not a few things. For one, as 
partly indicated already, the scientific demand 
of the age will be satisfied. That demand is 
that all that concerns life and conduct shall be 
placed on a scientific basis. The only great 
^ attempt to meet that at present is Positivism. 
^ But what again ir^ a scientific basis? What 
^ exactly is this demand of the age? '*By Sci- 
ence I understand,'' says Huxley, *'all knowl- 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

edge which rests upon evidence and reasoning 
of a like character to that which claims our 
assent to ordinary scientific propositions ; and 
if any one is able to make good the assertion 
that his theology rests upon valid evidence 
and sound reasoning, then it appears to me 
that such theology must take its place as a part 
of science." That the assertion has been 
already made good is claimed by many who 
deserve to be heard on questions of scientific 
evidence. But if more is wanted by some 
minds, more not perhaps of a higher kind, but 
of a different kind, at least the attempt can 
be m-ade to gratify them. Mr. Frederic Har- 
rison,* in name of the Positive method of 
thought, *' turns aside from ideal standards 
which avow themselves to be lawless, which 
profess to transcend the field of law. We say, 
life and conduct shall stand for us wholly on a 
basis of law, and must rest entirely in that 
region of science (not physical, but moral and 
social science) where we are free to use our 
intelligence, in the methods known to us as in- 
telligible logic, methods which the intellect 
can analyze. When you confront us with 
hypotheses, however sublime and however 
affecting, if they cannot be stated in terms of 
the rest of our knowledge, if they are disparate 
to that world of sequence and sensation which 
to us is the ultimate base of all our real knowl- 
edge, then we shake our heads and turn aside. " 
This is a most reasonable demand, and we 
humbly accept the challenge. We think relig- 

* "A Modern Syxnposinm."— Nineteenth Centnry, vol. i.,p. 625. 



44 INTRODUCTION. 

ious truth, or at all events certain of the larg- 
est facts of the Spiritual Life, can be stated 
*'in terms of the rest of our knowledge." 

We do not say, as already hinted, that the 
proposal includes an attempt to prove the ex- 
istence of the Spiritual World. Does that need 
proof? And if so, what sort of evidence would 
be considered in court? The facts of the Spir- 
itual World are as real to thousands as the facts 
of the Natural World — and more read to hun- 
dreds. But were one asked to prove that the 
Spiritual World can be discerned by the ap- 
propriate faculties, one would do it precisely 
as one would attempt to prove the Natural 
World to be an object of recognition to the 
senses — and with as much or as little success. 
In either instance probably the fact would be 
found incapable of demonstration, but not 
more in the one case than in the other. Were 
one asked to prove the existence of Spiritual 
Life, one would also do it exactly as one would 
seek to prove Natural Life. And this perhaps 
might be attempted with more hope. But this 
is not on the immediate programme. Science 
deals with known facts; and accepting certain 
known facts in the Spiritual World we proceed 
to arrange them, to discover their Laws, to 
inquire if they can be stated *'in terms of the 
rest of our knowledge." 

At the same time, although attempting no 
philosophical proof of the existence of a Spirit- 
ual Life and a Spiritual World, we are not 
without hope that the general line of thought 
here may be useful to some who are honestly 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

inquiring in these directions. The stumbling- 
block to most minds is perhaps less the mere 
existence of the unseen than the want of defini- 
tion, the apparently hopeless vagueness, and 
not least, the delight in this vagueness as mere 
vagueness by some who look upon this as the 
mark of quality in Spiritual things. It will be 
at least something to tell earnest seekers that 
the Spiritual World is not a castle in the air, 
of an architecture unknown to earth or heaven, 
but a fair ordered realm furnished with many 
familiar things and ruled by well-remembered 
Laws. 

It is scarcely necessary to emphasize under 
a second head the gain in clearness. The 
Spiritual world as it stands is full of perplex- 
ity. One can escape doubt only by escaping 
thought. With regard to many important 
articles of religion, perhaps the best and the 
worst course at present open to a doubter is 
simply credulity. Who is to answer for this 
state of things? It comes as a necessary tax 
for improvement on the age in which we live. 
The old ground of faith, Authority, is given 
up; the new. Science, has not yet taken its 
place. Men did not require to see truth before ; 
they only needed to believe it. Truth, there- 
fore, had not been put by Theology in a seeing 
form — which, however, was its original form. 
But they now ask to see it. And when it is 
shown them they start back in despair. We 
shall not say what they see. But we shall say 
what they might see. If the Natural Laws 
were run through the Spiritual World, they 



46 INTRODUCTION. 

might see the great lines of religious truth as 
clearly and simply as the broad lines of science. 
As they gazed into that Natural-Spiritual 
World they would say to themselves, *'We have 
seen something like this before. This order is 
known to us. It is not arbitrary. This Law 
here is that old Law there, and this Phenome- 
non here, what can it be but that which stood 
in precisely the same relation to that Law 
yonder?" And so gradually from the new 
form everything assumes new meaning. So 
the Spiritual World becomes slowly Natural; 
and, what is of all but equal moment, the 
Natural World becomes slowly Spiritual. 
Nature is not a mere image or emblem of the 
Spiritual. It is a working model of the Spirit- 
ual. In the Spiritual World the same wheels 
revolve — but without the iron. The same 
figures flit across the stage, the same processes 
of growth go on, the same functions are dis- 
charged, the same biological laws prevail — only 
with a different quality of Bios. Plato's pris- 
oner, if not out of the Cave, has at least his 
face to the light. 

"The earth is cram'd with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God." 

How much of the Spiritual World is covered 
by Natural Law we do not propose at present 
to inquire. It is certain, at least, that the 
whole is not covered. And nothing more lends 
confidence to the method than this. For one 
thing, room is still left for mystery. Had no 
place remained for mystery it had proved itself 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

both unscientific and irreligious. A Science 
without mystery is unknown; a Religion with- 
out mystery is absurd. This no attempt to 
reduce Religion to a question of mathematics, 
or demonstrate God in biological formulae. 
The elimination of mystery from the universe 
is the elimination of Religion. However far 
the scientific method may penetrate the Spirit- 
ual World, there will always remain a region 
to be explored by a scientific faith. "I shall 
never rise to the point of view which wishes to 
* raise' faith to knowledge. To me, the way 
of truth is to come through the knowledge of 
my ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, 
and then, making that my starting place, to 
raise my knowledge into faith."* 

Lest this proclamation of mystery should 
seem alarming, let us add that this mystery 
also is scientific. The one subject on which all 
scientific men are agreed, the one theme on 
which all alike become eloquent, the one strain 
of pathos in all their writing and speaking and 
thinking, concerns that final uncertainty, that 
utter blackness of darkness bounding their 
work on every side. If the light of Nature is 
to illuminate for us the Spiritual Sphere there 
may well be a black Unknown, corresponding, 
at least at some points, to this zone of darkness 
round the Natural World. 

But the final gain would appear in the depart- 
ment of Theology. The establishment of the 
Spiritual Laws on *'the solid ground of 
Nature," to which the mind trusts *' which 



*Beck: *'Bib. Psychol.," Clark's Tr., Pref., 2d Ed. p. xiii. 



48 INTRODUCTION. 

builds for aye," would offer a new basis for 
certainty in Religion. It has been indicated 
that the authority of Authority is waning. 
This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable. 
Authority — man's Authority that is— ^is for 
children. And there necessarily comes a time 
when they add to the question, What shall I 
do? or, What shall I believe? the adult's inter- 
rogation — Why? Now this question is sacred, 
and must be answered. 

''How truly its central position is impreg- 
nable," Herbert Spencer has well discerned, 
''religion has never adequately realized. In 
the devoutest faith, as we habitually see it, 
there lies hidden an innermost core of scep- 
ticism; and is this scepticism which causes 
that dread of inquiry displayed by religion 
when face to face with science. "* True indeed ; 
Religion has never realized how impregnable 
are many of its positions. It has not yet been 
placed on that basis which would make them 
impregnable. And in a transition period like 
the present, holding Authority with one hand, 
the other feeling all around in the darkness for 
some strong new support. Theology is surely 
to be pitied. Whence this dread when brought 
face to face with Science? It cannot be dread 
of scientific fact. No single fact in Science has 
ever discredited a fact in Religion. The the- 
ologian knows that, and admits that he has no 
fear of facts. What then has Science done to 
make Theology tremble? It is its method. It 
is its system. It is its Reign of Law. It is 

*"First Principles," p. 161. 



INTRODUCTION. 49 

its harmony and continuity. The attack is not 
specific. No one point is assailed. It is the 
whole system which when compared with the 
other and weighed in its balance is found want- 
ing. An eye which has looked at the first 
cannot look upon this. To do that, and rest 
in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury 
itself. 

Herbert Spencer points out further, with how 
much truth need not now be discussed, that 
the purification of Religion has always come 
from Science. It is very apparent at all events 
that an immense debt must soon be contracted. 
The shifting of the furnishings will be a work 
of time. But it must be accomplished. And 
not the least result of the process will be the 
effect upon Science itself. No department of 
knowledge ever contributes to another without 
receiving its own again with usury — vxritness 
the reciprocal favors of Biology and Sociology. 
From the time that Comte defined the analogy 
between the phenomena exhibited by aggrega- 
tions of associated men and those of animal 
colonies, the Science of Life and the Science 
of Society have been so contributing to one 
another that their progress since has been all 
but hand-to-hand. A conception borrowed by 
the one has been observed in time finding its 
way back, and always in an enlarged form, to 
further illuminate and enrich the field it left. 
So must it be with Science and Religon. li- 
the purification of Religion comes from Science, 
the purification of Science, in a deeper sense, 
shall come from Religion. The true ministry 

4 



50 INTRODUCTION. 

of Nature must at last be honored, and Science 
take its place as the great expositor. To Men 
of Science, not less than to Theologians, 

Science then 
Shall be a precious visitant; and then, 
And only then, be worthy of her name ; 
For then her heart shall kindle, her dull eye, 
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang 
Chained to its object in brute slavery ; 
But taught wi^h patient interest to watch 
The process of things, and serve the cause 
Of order and distinctness, not for this 
Shall it forget that its most noble use. 
Its most illustrious province, must be found 
In furnishing clear guidance, a support. 
Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power.*** 



But the gift of Science to Theology shall be 
not less rich. With the inspiration of Nature 
to illuminate what the inspiration of Revela- 
tion has left obscure, heresy in certain whole 
departments shall become impossible. With 
the demonstration of the naturalness of the 
supernatural, scepticism even may come to be 
regarded as unscientific. And those who have 
wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble 
life and rest their souls in thinking of the future 
will not be left in doubt. 

It is impossible to believe that the amazing 
succession of revelations in the domain of 
Nature during the last few centuries, at which 
the world has all but grown tired wondering, 
are to yield nothing for the higher life. If the 

♦Wordsworth's Excursion^ Book iv. 



INTRODUCTION. 51 

development of doctrine is to have any mean- 
ing for the fntiire, Theology must draw upon 
the further revelation of the seen for the further 
revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, 
add nothing to fact ; but as the vision of New- 
ton rested on a clearer and richer world than 
that of Plato, so, though seeing the same 
things in the Spiritual World as our fathers, 
we may see them clearer and richer. With 
the work of the centuries upon it, the mental 
eye is a finer instrument, and demands a more 
ordered world. Had the revelation of Law 
been given sooner, it had been unintelligible. 
Revelation never volunteers anything that 
man could discover for himself — on the prin- 
ciple, probably, that it is only when he is cap- 
able of discovering it that he is capable of 
appreciating it. Besides, children do not need 
Laws, except Laws in the sense of command- 
ments. They repose with simplicity on 
authority, and ask no questions. But there 
comes a time, as the w^orld reaches its man- 
hood, when they will ask questions, and stake, 
moreover, everything on the answers. That 
time is now. Hence we must exhibit our doc- 
trines, not lying athv/art the lines of the world's 
thinking, in a place reserved, and therefore 
shunned, for the Great Exception ; but in their 
kinship to all truth and in their Law -relation 
to the whole of Nature. This is, indeed, 
simply following out the system of teaching 
begun by Christ Himself. And what is the 
search for spiritual truth in the Laws of Nature 
but an attempt to utter the parables which 



52 INTRODUCTION. 

have been hid so long in the world around 
without a preacher, and to tell men once more 
that the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this 
^,nd to that? 



INTRODUCTION. 53 



PART II. 

The Law of Continuity having been re- 
ferred to already as a prominent factor in this 
inquiry, it may not be out of place to sustain 
plea for Natural Law in the Spiritual Sphere 
by a brief statement and application of this 
great principle. The Law of Continuity fur- 
nishes an a priori argument for the position we 
are attempting to establish of the most convin- ' 
cing kind — of such a kind, indeed, as to seem 
to our mind final. Briefly indicated, the 
ground taken up is this, that if Nature be a 
harmony, Man in all his relations — physical, 
mental, moral, and spiritual — fa|ls to be in- 
cluded within its circle. It is altogether un- 
likely that man spiritual should be violently 
separated in all the conditions of growth, de- 
velopment, and life, from man physical. It is 
indeed difficult to conceive that one set of 
principles should guide the natural life, and 
these at a certain period — the very point where 
they are needed — suddenly give place to an- 
other set of principles altogether new and un- 
related. Nature has never taught us to expect 
such a catastrophe. She has nowhere pre- 
pared us for it. And Man cannot in the 
nature of things, in the nature of thought, in 



54 INTRODUCTION. 

the nature of lang^uage, be separated into two 
such incoherent halves. 

The spiritual man, it is true, is to be stud- 
ied in a different department of science from 
the natural man. But the harmony established 
by science is not a harmony within specific de- 
partments. It is the universe that is the har- 
mony, the universe of which these are but parts . 
And the harmonies of the parts depend for all 
their weight and interest on the harmony of 
the whole. While, therefore, there are many 
harmonies, there is but one harmony. The 
breaking up of the phenomena of the universe 
into carefully guarded groups, and the alloca- 
tion of certain prominent Laws to each, it must 
never be forgotten, and however much Nature 
lends itself to it, are artificial. We find an 
evolution in Botan}^, another in Geology, and 
another in Astronomy, and the effect is to lead 
one insensibly to look upon these as three dis- 
tinct evolutions. But these sciences, of course, 
are mere departments created by ourselves to 
facilitate knowledge — reductions of Nature to 
the scale of our own intelligence. And we must 
beware of breaking up Nature except for this 
purpose. Science has so dissected everything, 
that it becomes a mental difficulty to put the 
puzzle together again : and we must keep our- 
selves in practice by constantly thinking of 
Nature as a whole, if science is not to be spoiled 
by its own refinements. Evolution being 
found in so many different sciences, the 
likelihood is that it is a universal principle. 
And there is no presumption whatever against 



INTRODUCTION. 55 

this Law and many others being excluded 
from the domain of the spiritual life. On 
the other hand, there are very convincing 
reasons why the Natural Laws should be con- 
tinuous through the Spiritual Sphere — not 
changed in any way to meet the new circum- 
stances, but continuous as they stand. 

But to the exposition. One of the most strik- 
ing generalizations of recent science is that 
even Laws have their Law. Phenomena first, 
in the progress of knowledge, were grouped to- 
gether, and Nature shortly presented the spec- 
tacle of a cosmos, the lines of beauty being the 
great Natural Laws. So long, however, as 
these Laws were merely great lines running 
through Nature, so long as they remained iso- 
lated from one another, the system of Nature 
was still incomplete. The principle which 
sought Law among phenomena had to go fur- 
ther and seek a Law among the Laws. Laws 
themselves accordingly came to be treated as 
they treated phenomena, and found themselves 
finally grouped in a still narrower circle. That 
inmost circle is governed by one great Law, 
the Law of Continuity. It is the Law for 
Laws. 

It is perhaps significant that few exact defi- 
nitions of Continuity are to be found. Even 
in Sir W. R. Grove's famous paper,* the foun- 
tain-head of the modern form of this far from 
modern truth, there is no attempt at definition. 
In point of fact, its sweep is so magnificent, it 
appeals so much more to the imagination than 

* "The Correlation of Physical Forces," 6th Ed. p. 181, et seq. 



£6 INTRODUCTION. 

to the reason, that men have preferred to ex- 
hibit rather than to define it. Its true great- 
ness consists in the final impression it leaves 
on the mind with regard to the uniformity of 
Nature. For it was reserved for the Law of 
Continuity to put the finishing touch to the 
harmony of the universe. 

Probably the most satisfactory way to secure 
for oneself a just appreciation of the Principle 
of Continuity is to try to conceive the universe 
without it. The opposite of a continuous uni- 
verse would be a discontinuous universe, an 
incoherent and irrelevant universe — as irrel- 
evant in all its ways of doing things as an irrel- 
evant person. In effect, to withdraw Continu- 
ity from the universe would be the same as to 
withdraw reason from an individual. The uni- 
verse would run deranged; the world would be 
a mad world. 

There used to be a children's book which 
bore the fascinating title of ''The Chance 
World.'' It described a world in which every- 
thing happened by chance. The sun might rise 
or it might not; or it might appear at any 
hour, or the moon might come up instead. 
When children were born they might have one 
head or a dozen heads, and those heads might 
not be on their shoulders — there might be no 
shoulders — but arranged about the limbs. If 
one jumped up in the air it was impossible to 
predict whether he would ever come down 
again. That he came down yesterday was no 
guarantee that he would do it next time. For 
every day antecedent and consequent varied, 



INTRODUCTION. 57 

and gravitation and everything else changed 
from hour to hour. To-day a child's body 
might be so light that it was impossible for it 
to descend from its chair to the floor; but to- 
morrow, in attempting the experiment again, 
the impetus might drive it through a three- 
story house and dash it to pieces somewhere 
near the centre of the earth. In this chance 
world cause and effect were abolished. Law 
was annihilated. And the result to the inhabi- 
tants of such a world could only be that reason 
would be impossible. It would be a lunatic 
world with a population of lunatics. 

Now this is no more than a real picture of 
what the world would be without Law, or the 
universe without Continuity. And hence we 
come in sight of the necessity of some prin- 
ciple or La,w according to which Laws shall 
be, and be ''continuous" throughout the sys- 
tem. Man as a rational and moral being de- 
mands a pledge that if he depends on Nature 
for any given result on the ground that 
Nature has previously led him to except such 
a result, his intellect shall not be insulted, 
nor his confidence in her abused. If he is to 
trust Nature, in short, it must be guaranteed 
to him that in doing so he will ''never be put 
to confusion. " The authors of the "Unseen 
Universe" conclude their examination of this 
principle by saying that "assuming the exist- 
ence of a Supreme Governor of the universe, 
the Principle of Continuity may be said to be 
the definite expression in words of our trust 
that He will not put us to permanent intellec- 



58 INTRODUCTION. 

tual confusion, and we can easily conceive simi- 
lar expressions of trust with reference to the 
other faculties of man." * Or, as it has been 
well put elsewhere, Continuity is the expres- 
sion of ''the Divine Veracity in Nature." f 
The most striking examples of the continu- 
ousness of Law are perhaps those furnished by 
Astronomy, especially in connection with the 
more recent applications of spectrum analysis. 
But even in the case of the simpler Laws the 
demonstration is complete. There is no reason 
apart from Continuity to expect that gravita- 
tion for instance should prevail outside our 
world. But wherever matter has been detected 
throughout the entire universe, whether in the 
form of star or planet, comet or meteorite, it is 
found to obey that Law. ''If there were no 
other indication of unity than this, it would be 
almost enough. For the unity which is im- 
plied in the mechanism of the heavens is indeed 
a unity which is all-embracing and complete. 
The structure of our own bodies, with all that 
depends upon it, is a structure governed by, 
and therefore adapted to, the same force of gra- 
vitation which has determined the form and 
the movements of myriads of worlds. Every 
part of the human organism is fitted to condi- 
tions which would all be destroyed in a mo- 
ment if. the forces of gravitation were to 
•change or fail. ' ' t 

* "Unseen Universe," 6th Ed., p. 88. 

t "Old Faiths in New Light," by Newman Smith. Unwin's 
English edition, p 252. 

t The Duk£ of Argyll: "Contemporary Review," Sept., 1880, 
7p. 358.* 



INTRODUCTION. 59 

But it is unnecessary to multiply illustra- 
tions. Having defined the principle we may 
proceed at once to apply it. And the argu- 
ment may be summed up in a sentence. As 
the Natural Laws are continuous through the 
universe of matter and of space, so will they 
be continuous through the universe of spirit. 

If this be denied, what then? Those who 
deny it must furnish the disproof. The argu- 
ment is founded on a principle which is now 
acknowledged to be universal ; and the 07ius of 
disproof must lie with those who may be bold 
enough to take up the position that a region 
exists where at last the Principle of Continuity 
fails. To do this one would first have to over- 
turn Nature, then science, and last, the human 
mind. 

It may seem an obvious objection that many 
of the Natural Laws have no connection what- 
ever with the Spiritual World, and as a matter 
of fact are not continued through it. Gravi- 
tation, for instance — what direct application 
has that in the Spiritual World? The reply is 
three-fold. First, there is no proof that it does 
not hold there. If the spirit be in any sense 
material it certainly must hold. In the second 
place, gravitation may hold for the Spiritual 
Sphere although it cannot be directly proved. 
The spirit may be armed with powers which 
enable it to rise superior to gravity. Dur- 
ing the action of these powers gravity need be 
no more suspended than in the case of a plant 
which rises in the air during the process of 
growth. It does this in virtue of a higher Law 



60 INTRODUCTION. 

and in apparent defiance of the lower. 
Thirdly, if the spiritual be not material it still 
cannot be said that that gravitation ceases at 
that point to be continuous. It is not gravita- 
tion that ceases — it is matter. 

This point, however, will require develop- 
ment for another reason. In the case of the 
plant just referred to, there is a principle of 
growth or vitality at work superseding the 
^attraction of gravity. Why is there no trace 
of that Law in the Inorganic world? Is not 
this another instance of the discontinuousness 
of Law? If the Law of vitality has so little 
connection with the Inorganic kingdom — less 
even than gravitation with the Spiritual, what 
becomes of Continuity? Is it not evident that 
each kingdom of Nature has its own set of 
Laws which continue possibly untouched for 
the specific kingdom but never extend be- 
yond it? 

It is quite true that when we pass from the 
Inorganic to the Organic, we come upon a new 
set of Laws. But the reason why the lower 
set do not seem to act in the higher sphere is 
not that they are annihilated, but they are 
overruled. And the reason why the higher 
Laws are not found operating in the lower is 
not because they are not continuous downward, 
bu.t because there is nothing for them there to 
act upon. It is not Law'ihat fails, but oppor- 
tunity. The biological Laws are continuous 
for life. Wherever there is life, that is to say, 
they will be found acting, just as gravitation 
acts wherever there is matter. 



V INTRODUCTION. 61 

We have purposely, in the last paragraph, 
/indulged in a fallacy. We have said that the 
biological Laws would certainly be continu- 
ous in the lower or mineral sphere were there 
anything there for them to act upon. Now 
Laws do not act upon anything. It has been 
stated already, although apparently it cannot 
be too abundantly emphasized, that Laws are 
only modes of operation, not themselves ope- 
rators. The accurate statem^ent, therefore, 
would be that the biological Laws would be 
continuous in the low^er sphere were there 
anything there for them, not to act upon, but 
to keep in order. If there is no acting going 
on, if there is nothing being kept in order, the 
responsibility does not lie with Continuity. 
The Law will always be at its post, not only 
when its services are required, but wherever 
they are possible. 

Attention is drawn to this, for it is a correc- 
tion one will find oneself compelled often to 
make in his thinking. It is so difficult to keep 
out of mind the idea of substance in connection 
with the Natural Laws, the idea that they are 
the movers, the essences, the energies, that 
one is constantly on the verge of false conclu- 
sions. Thus a hasty glance at the present 
argument on the part of any one ill -furnished 
enough to confound Law with substance or 
with cause would probably lead to its imme- 
diate rejection. 

For, to continue the same line of illustration, 
it might next be urged that such a Lav/ as 
Biogenesis, which, as we hope to show after- 



62 INTRODUCTION. 

wards, is the fundamental Law of life for both 
the natural and spiritual worlds, can have no- 
application whatsoever in the latter sphere. 
The life with which it deals in the Natural 
World does not enter at all in the Spiritual 
World, and therefore, it might be argued, the 
Law of Biogenesis cannot be capable of exten- 
sion into it. The Law of Continuity seems to 
be snapped at the point where the natural 
passes into the spiritual. The vital principle 
of the body is a different thing from the vital 
principle of the spiritual life. Biogenesis deals 
with Bios with the natural life, with cells and 
germs, and as there are no exactly similar cells 
and germs in the Spiritual World, the Law 
cannot therefore apply. All of which is as- 
true as if one were to say that the fifth propo- 
sition of the First Book of Euclid applies when 
the figures are drawn with chalk upon a black- 
board, but fails with regard to structures of 
wood or stone. 

The proposition is continuous for the whole 
world, and, doubtless, likewise for the sun and 
moon and stars. The same universality may be 
predicted likewise for the Law of life. Wher- 
ever there is life we may expect to find it 
arranged, ordered, governed according to the 
same Law. At the beginning of the natural 
life we find the Law that natural life can only 
come from pre-existing natural life; and at 
the beginning of the spiritual life we find that 
the spiritual life can only come from pre-exist- 
ing spiritual life. But there are not two Laws ; 
there is one— Biogenesis. At one end the 



INTRODUCTION. 63 

Law is dealing- with matter, at the other with 
spirit. The qualitative terms natural and 
spiritual make no diflference. Biogenesis is the 
Law for all life and for all kinds of life, and 
the particular substance with which it is asso- 
ciated is as different to Biogenesis as it is to 
Gravitation. Gravitation will act whether the 
substance be suns and stars, or grains of sand, 
or raindrops. Biogenesis, in like manner, will 
act wherever there is life. 

The conclusion finally is, that from the 
nature of Law in general, and from the scope 
of the Principle of Continuity in particular, 
the Laws of the natural life must be those of 
the spiritual life. This does not exclude, 
observe, the possibility of there being new 
Laws in addition within the Spiritual Sphere; 
nor does it even include the supposition that 
the old Laws will be the conspicuous Laws of 
the Spiritual World, both which points will be 
dealt with presently. It simply asserts that 
whatever else may be found, these must be 
found there ; that they must be there though 
they may not be seen there; and that they 
must project beyond there if there be anything 
beyond there. If the Law of Continuity is 
true, the only way to escape the conclusion 
that the Laws of the natural life are the Laws, 
or at least are Laws, of the spiritual life, is 
to say that there is no spiritual life. It is 
really easier to give up the phenomena than 
to give up the Law. 

Two questions now remain for further con- 
sideration — one bearing on the possibility of 



64 INTRODUCTION. 

new Law in the spiritual ; the other, on the 
assumed invisibility or inconspicuousness of 
the old Laws on account of their subordination 
to the new. 

Let us begin by conceding that there may 
be new Laws. The argument might then be 
advanced that since, in Nature generally, we 
come upon new Laws as we pass from lower 
to higher kingdoms, the old still remaining in 
force, the newer Laws which one would expect 
to meet in the Spiritual World, would so tran- 
scend and overwhelm the older as to make the 
analogy or identity, even if traced, of no prac- 
tical use. The new Laws would represent 
operations and energies so different, and so 
much more elevated, that they would afford 
the true keys to the Spiritual World. As 
Gravitation is practically lost sight of when we 
pass into the domain of life, so Biogenesis 
would be lost sight of as we enter the Spiritual 
Sphere. 

We must first separate in this statement the 
old confusion of Law and energy. Gravitation 
is not lost sight of in the Organic world. 
Gravity may be, to a certain extent, but not 
Gravitation ; and gravity only where a higher 
power counteracts its action. At the same 
time it is not to be denied that the conspicuous 
thing in Organic Nature is not the great Inor- 
ganic Law. 

But the objection turns upon the statement 
that reasoning from analogy we should expect, 
in turn, to lose sight of Biogenesis as we enter 
the Spiritual Sphere. One answer to which is 



INTRODUCTION. 65 

that, as a matter of fact, we do not lose sight 
of it. So far from being invisible, it lies across 
the very threshold of the Spiritual World, 
and, as we shall see, pervades it everywhere. 
What we lose sight of, to a certain extent, is 
the natural Bios, In the Spiritual World that 
is not the conspicuous thing, and it is obscure 
there just as gravity becomes obscure in the 
Organic, because something higher, more 
potent, more characteristic of the higher plane, 
comes in. That there are higher energies, so 
to speak, in the Spiritual World is, of course, 
to be affirmed alike on the ground of analogy 
and of experience ; but it does not follow that 
these necessitate other Laws. A Law has 
nothing to do with potency. We may lose 
sight of a substance, or of an energy, but it is 
an abuse of language to talk of losing sight of 
Laws. 

Are there, then, no other Laws in the Spirit- 
ual World except those which are the projec- 
tions or extensions of Natural Laws? From 
the number of Natural Laws which are found 
in the higher sphere, from the large territory 
actually embraced by them, and from their 
special prominence throughout the whole 
region, it may at least be answered that the 
margin left for them is small. But if the 
objection is pressed that it is contrary to the 
analogy, and unreasonable in itself, that there 
should not be new Laws for this higher sphere, 
the reply is obvious. Let these Laws be pro- 
duced. If the spiritual nature, in inception, 
growth, and development, does not follow 

5 Natural Law 



66 INTRODUCTION. 

natural principles, let the true principles be 
stated and explained. We have not denied 
that there may be new Laws. One would 
almost be surprised if there were not. The 
mass of material handed over from the natural 
to the spiritual, continuous, apparently, from 
the natural to the spiritual, is so great that till 
that is worked out it will be impossible to say 
what space is still left unembraced by Laws 
that are known. At present it is impossible, 
even approximately, to estimate the size of that 
supposed terra incognita. From one point of 
view it ought to be vast, from another ex- 
tremely small. But however large the region 
governed by the suspected new Laws may be 
that cannot diminish by a hair's-breadth the 
size of the territory where the old Laws still 
prevail. That territory itself, relatively to 
us though perhaps not absolutely, must be of 
great extent. The size of the key which is to 
open it, that is, the size of all the Natural 
Laws which can be found to apply, is a guar- 
antee that the region of the knowable in the 
Spiritual World is at least as wide as these 
regions of the Natural World which by the 
help of these Laws have been explored. No 
doubt also there yet remain some Natural 
Laws to be discovered, and these in time may 
have a further light to shed on the spiritual 
field. Then we may know all that is? By 
no means. We may only know all that may 
be known. And that may be very little. The 
Soverign Will which sways the sceptre of that 
invisible empire must be granted a right of 



INTRODUCTION. 67 

freedom — that freedom which by putting it into 
our wills He surely teaches us to honor in His. 
In much of His dealing with us also, in what 
may be called the paternal relation, there may 
seem no special Law — no Law except the 
highest of all, that Law of which all other 
Laws are parts, that Law which neither 
Nature can wholly reflect nor the mind begin 
to fathom — the Law of Love. He adds noth- 
ing to that, however, who loses sight of all 
other Laws in that, nor does he take from it 
who finds specific Laws everywhere radiating 
from it. 

With regard to the supposed new Laws of 
the Spiritual World — those Laws, that is, which 
are found for the first time in the Spiritual 
World, and have no analogies lower down — ■- 
there is this to be said, that there is one strong 
reason against exaggerating either their num- 
ber or importance — their importance at least 
for our immediate needs. The connection 
between language and the Law of Continuity 
has been referred to incidentally already. It 
is clear that we can only express the Spiritual 
Laws in Language borrowed from the visible 
universe. Being dependent for our vocabulary 
on images, if an altogether new and foreign 
set of Laws existed in the Spiritual World, 
they could never take shape as definite ideas 
from mere want of words. The hypothetical 
new Laws which may remain to be discovered 
in the domain of Natural or Mental Science 
may afford some index of these hypothetical 
higher laws, but this would of course mean 



68 INTRODUCTION. 

that the latter were no longer foreign but in 
analogy, or, likelier still, identical. If, on the 
other hand, the Natural Laws of the future 
have nothing to say of these higher Laws, 
what can be said of them! Where is the lan- 
guage to come from in which to frame them? 
If their disclosure could be of any practical use 
to us, we may be sure the clue to them, the 
revelation of them, in some way would have 
been put into Nature. If, on the contrary, 
they are not to be of immediate use to man, 
it is better they should not embarrass him. 
After all, then, our knowledge of higher Law 
must be limited by our knowledge of the lower. 
The Natural Laws as at present known, what- 
ever additions may yet be made to them, give 
a fair rendering of the facts of Nature. And 
their analogies or their projections in the 
Spiritual Sphere may also be said to offer a 
fair account of that sphere, or of one or two 
conspicuous departments of it. The time has 
come for that account to be given. The 
greatest among the theological Laws are the 
Laws of Nature in disguise. It will be the 
splendid task of the theology of the future to 
take off the mask and disclose to a waning 
scepticism the naturalness of the supernatural. 
It is almost singular that the identification 
of the Laws of the Spiritual World with the 
Laws of Nature should so long have escaped 
recognition. For apart from the probability 
on a priori grounds, it is involved in the whole 
structure of Parable. When any two Phe- 
nomena in the two spheres are seen to be 



INTRODUCTION. 69 

analogous, the parallelism must depend upon 
the fact that the Laws governing them are 
not analogous but identical. And yet this 
basis for Parable seems to have been over- 
looked. Thus Principal Shairp: — ''This seeing 
of Spiritual truths mirrored in the face of 
Nature rests not on any fancied, but in a real 
analogy between the natural and the spiritual 
worlds. They are in some sense which science 
has not ascertained, but which the vital and 
religious imagination can perceive, counter- 
parts one of the other."* But is not this the 
explanation, that parallel Phenomena depend 
upon identical Laws? It is a question indeed 
whether one can speak of Laws at all as being 
analogous. Phenomena are parallel. Laws 
which make them so are themselves one. 

In discussing the relations of the Natural and 
Spiritual kingdom, it has been all but implied 
hitherto that the Spiritual Laws w^ere framed 
originally on the plan of the Natural ; and the 
impression one might receive in studying the 
two worlds for the first time from the side of 
analogy would naturally be that the lower 
world was formed first, as a kind of scaffolding 
on which the higher and Spiritual should be 
afterward raised. Now the exact opposite has 
been the case. The first in the field was the 
Spiritual World. 

It is not necessarj^ to reproduce here in 
detail the argument which has been stated 
recently Vs^ith so much force in the '* Unseen 
Universe." The conclusion of that work 



* "Poetic Interpretation of Nature," p. 115. 



70 INTRODUCTION. 

remains still unassailed, that the visible uni- 
verse has been developed from the unseen. 
Apart from the general proof from the Law of 
Continuity, the more special grounds of such 
a conclusion are, first, the fact insisted upon by 
Herschel and Clerk-Maxwell that the atoms of 
which the visible universe is built up bear dis- 
tinct marks of being manufactured articles; 
and, secondly, the origin in time of the visible 
universe is implied from known facts with 
regard to the dissipation of energy. With the 
gradual aggregation of mass the energy of the 
universe has been slowly disappearing, and this 
loss of energy must go on until none remains. 
There is, therefore, a point in time when the 
energy of the universe must come to an end; 
and that which has its end in time cannot be 
infinite, it must also have had a beginning in 
time. Hence the unseen existed before the 
seen. 

There is nothing so specially exalted there- 
fore in the Natural Laws in themselves as to 
make one anxious to find them blood relations 
of the Spiritual. It is not only because these 
Laws are on the ground, more accessible there- 
fore to us who are but groundlings; not only, 
as the ^'Unseen Universe" points out in another 
connection, ''because they are at the bottom of 
the list — are in fact the simplest and lowest — 
that they are capable of being most readily 
grasped by the finite intelligences of the 
universe."* But their true significance lies in 
the fact that they are on the list at all, and 

*6th Edition, p. 235 



INTRODUCTION. 71 

especially in that the list is the same list. 
Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, but as 
Spiritual Laws, Laws which, as already said, 
at one end are dealing with Matter, and at the 
other with Spirit. *'The physical properties of 
matter form the alphabet which is put into our 
hands by God, the study of which, if properly 
conducted, will enable us more perfectly to 
read that great book which we call the 'Uni- 
verse. ' "* But, over and above this, the Natu- 
ral Laws will enable us to read that great dupli- 
cate which we call the ''Unseen Universe,'* 
and to think and live in fuller harmony w4th 
it. After all, the true greatness of Law lies in 
its vision of the Unseen. Law in the visible 
is the Invisible in the visible. And to speak of 
Laws as Natural is to define them in their 
application to a part of the universe, the sense- 
part, whereas a wid^r survey would lead us to 
regard all Laws as essentially spiritual. To 
magnify the Laws of Nature, as Laws of this 
small world of ours, is to take a provincial 
view of the universe. Law is great not 
because the phenomenal world is great, but 
because these vanishing lines are the avenues 
into the eternal Order. 

"Is it less reverent to regard the universe as 
an illimitable avenue which leads up to God, 
than to look upon it as a limited area bounded 
by an impenetrable wall, which, if we could 
only pierce it, would admit us at once into the 
presence of the Eternal?"f Indeed the authors 

* 6th Edition, p. 286. 

t "Unseen Universe," p. 96. 



72 INTRODUCTION. 

of the '^Unseen Universe" demur even to the 
expression material universe, since, as they 
tell us ''Matter is (though it may seem para- 
doxical to say so) the less important half of 
the material of the physical universe."* And 
even Mr. Huxley, though in a different sense, 
assures us, with Descartes, "that we know 
more of mind than we do of body; that the 
immaterial world is a firmer reality than the 
material."! 

How the priority of the Spiritual improves 
the strength and meaning of the whole argu- 
ment will be seen at once. The lines of the 
Spiritual existed first, and it was natural to 
expect that when the ''Intelligence resident in 
the 'Unseen' " proceeded to frame the material 
universe He should go upon the lines already 
laid down. He would, in short, simply project 
the higher Laws downward, so that the Natural 
World would become an incarnation, a visible 
representation, a working model of the Spirit- 
ual. The whole function of the material world 
lies here. The world is only a thing that is ; 
it is not. It is a thing that teaches, yet not 
even a thing — a show that shows, a teaching 
shadow. However useless the demonstration 
otherwise, philosophy does well in proving that 
matter is a non-entity. We work with it as 
the mathematician with an x. The reality is 
alone the Spiritual. "It is very well for 
physicists to speak of 'matter,' but for men 
generally to call this 'a material world' is an 
absurdity. Should we call it an x-world it 

*Ibid., p. 100. t "Science and Culture," p. 259. 



INTRODUCTION. 73 

would mean as much, viz., that we do not 
know what it is."* When shall we learn the 
true mysticism of one who was yet far from 
being a mystic — ''We look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are 
not seen ; for the things which are seen are 
temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal?"f The visible is the ladder scaffolding 
of the eternal. And when the last immaterial 
souls have climbed through this material to 
God, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and 
the earth dissolved with fervent heat — not 
because it was base, but because its work is 
done 

*Hinton's "Philosophy and Religion," p. 40. 
tCor. iv. 18. 



6 Natural Law 



BIOGENESIS. 



75 



''What we require is no new Revelation, but simply 
an adequate conception of the true essence of Christi- 
anity. And I believe that, as time goes on, the work of 
tke Holy Spirit will be continuously shown in the grad- 
ual insight which the human race will attain into the 
true essence ci' the Christian religion. I am thus of 
opinion that a standing miracle exists and that it has 
ever existed — a direct and continued influence exerted 
by the supernatural on the natural. ' ' 

Paradoxical Philosophy. 



76 



BIOGENESIS. 

**He that hath the Son hath Life and he that hath 
not the Son of God hath not Life." — John. 
"Omne vivum ex vivo." — Harvey. 

For two hundred years the scientific world 
has been rent with discussions upon the Origin 
of Life. Two great schools have defended 
exactly opposite views — one that matter can 
spontaneously generate life, the other that life 
can only come from pre-existing life. The 
doctrine of Spontaneous Generation, as the first 
is called, has been revived within recent years 
by Dr. Bastian, after a series of elaborate 
experiments on the Beginnings of Life. Stated 
in his own words, his conclusion is this: 
"Both observation and experiment unmistak- 
ably testify to the fact that living matter is 
constantly being formed de novo, in obedience 
to the same laws and tendencies which deter- 
mine all the more simple chemical combina- 
tions. "* Life, that it to say, is not the Gift of 
Life. It is capable of springing into being of 
itself. It can be Spontaneously Generated. 

This announcement called into the field a 
phalanx of observers, and the highest author- 
ities in biological science engaged themselves 
afresh upon the problem. The experiments 

* "Beginnings of Life." By H. C. Bastian, M. A., M. D., F. R. 

S. Macmillan, vol. ii. p. 633. 

77 



78 BIOGENESIS. 

necessary to test the matter can be followed or 
repeated by any one possessing the slightest 
manipulative skill. Glass vessels are three- 
parts filled with infusions of hay or any organic 
matter. They are boiled to kill all germs of 
life, and hermetically sealed to exclude the 
outer air. The air inside, having been exposed 
to the boiling temperature for many hours, is 
supposed to be likewise dead ; so that any life 
which may subsequently appear in the closed 
flasks must have sprung into being of itself. 
In Bastian*s experiments after every expedi- 
ent to secure sterility, life did appear inside 
in myriad quantity. Therefore, he argued, it 
was spontaneously generated. 

But the phalanx of observers found two 
errors in this calculation. Professor Tyndall 
repeated the same experiment, only with a 
precaution to ensure absolute sterility sug- 
gested by the most recent science — a discovery 
of his own. After every care, he conceived 
there might still be undestroyed germs in the 
air inside the flasks. If the air were abso- 
Uutely germless and pure, would the myriad 
|life appear? He manipulated his experimental 
fvessels in an atmosphere which under the high 
I'test of optical purity — the most delicate known 
I'test— was absolutely germless. Here not a 
^vestige of life appeared. He varied the exper- 
|iment in, every direction, but matter in the 
germless air never yielded life. 

The other error was detected by Mr. Dal- 
linger. He found among the lower forms of 
life the most surprising and indestructible 



BIOGENESIS. 79 

vitality. Many animals could survive much 
higher temperatures than Dr. Bastian had ap- 
plied to annihilate them. Some germs almost 
refused to be annihilated — they were all but 
fire-proof. 

These experiments have practically closed 
the question. A decided and authoritative 
conclusion has now taken its place in science. 
So far as science can settle anything, this ques- 
tion is settled. The attempt to get the living 
out of the dead has failed. Spontaneous Gen- 
eration has had to be given up. And it is now 
recognized on every hand that Life can only 
come from the touch of Life. Huxley cate- 
gorically announces that the doctrine of Bio- 
genesis, or life only from life, is ^Victorious 
along the whole line at the present day."* 
And even while confessing that he wishes the 
evidence were the other way, Tyndall is com- 
pelled to say, *'I affirm that no shred of trust- 
worthy experimental testimony exists to prove 
that life in our day has ever appeared indepen- 
dently of antecedent life." f 

For much more than two hundred years a 
similar discussion has dragged its length 
through the religious world. Two great schools 
here also have defended exactly opposite views 
— one that the Spiritual Life in man can only 
come from pre-existing Life, the other that it 
can Spontaneously Generate itself. Taking its 
stand upon the initial statement of the Author 
of the Spiritual Life, one small school, in the 

* ''Critiques and Addresses " T. H. Huxley, F. R. S., p. 239. 

t "Nineteenth Century," 1878, p. 507. 



80 BIOGENESIS. 

face of derision and opposition, has persistently 
maintained the doctrine of Biogenesis. An- 
other, larger and with greater pretension to 
philosophic form, has defended Spontaneous 
Generation. The weakness of the former 
school consists— though this has been much 
exaggerated — in its more or less general ad- 
herence to the extreme view that religion has 
nothing to do with the natural life ; the weak- 
ness of the latter lay in yielding to the more 
fatal extreme that it had nothing to do with 
anything else. That man, being a worship- 
ing animal by nature, ought to maintain cer- 
tain relations to the Supreme Being, was in- 
deed to some extent conceded by the natural- 
istic school, but religion itself was looked upon 
as a thing to be spontaneously generated by 
the evolution of character in the laboratory of 
common life. 

The difference between the two positions is 
radical. Translated from the language of Sci- 
ence into that of Religion, the theory of Spon- 
taneous Generation is simply that a man may 
become gradually better and better, until in 
course of process he reaches that quality of 
religious nature known as Spiritual Law. This 
life is not something added ab extra to the 
natural man ; it is the normal and appropriate 
development of the natural man. Biogenesis 
opposes to this the whole doctrine of Regenera- 
tion. The Spiritual Life is the gift of the Liv- 
ing Spirit. The spiritual man is no mere de- 
velopment of the natural man. He is a New 
Creation born from Above. As well expect a 



BIOGENESIS. 81 

hay infusion to become gradually more and 
more living until in course of the process it 
reached Vitality, as expect a man by becom- 
ing better and better to attain the Eternal Life. 

The advocates of Biogenesis in Religion have 
founded their arguments hitherto all but exclu- 
sively on Scripture. The relation of the doc- 
trine to the constitution and course of Nature 
was not disclosed. Its importance, therefore, 
was solely as a dogma; and being directly con- 
cerned with the Supernatural, it was valid for 
those alone who chose to accept the Supernatu- 
ral. 

Yet it has been keenly felt by those who 
attempt to defend this doctrine of the origin of 
the Spiritual Life, that they have nothing more 
to oppose to the rationalistic view than the ipse 
dixit of Revelation. The argument from ex- 
perience, in the nature of the case, is seldom 
easy to apply, and Christianity has always 
found at this point a genuine difficulty in meet- 
ing the challenge of Natural Religions. The 
direct authority of Nature, using Nature in its 
limited sense, was not here to be sought for. 
On such a question its voice was necessarily 
silent; and all that the apologist could look for 
lower down was a distant echo or analogy. ^11 
that is really possible, indeed, is such an anal- 
ogy; and if that can now be found in Biogen- 
esis, Christianity in its most central position 
secures at length a support and basis in the 
Laws of Nature. 

Up to the present time the analogy required 
has not been forthcoming. There was no 



82 BIOGENESIS. 

known parallel in Nature for the spiritual phe- 
nomena in question. But now the case is 
altered. With the elevation of Biogenesis to 
the rank of a scientific fact, all problems con- 
cerning the Origin of Life are placed on a 
different footing. And it remains to be seen 
whether Religion cannot at once re-affirm and 
reshape its argument in the light of this mod- 
ern truth. 

If the doctrine of the Spontaneous Genera- 
tion of Spiritual Life can be met on scientific 
grounds, it will mean the removal of the most 
serious enemy Christianity has to deal with, 
and especially within its own borders, at the 
present day. The religion of Jesus has prob- 
ably always suffered more from those who have 
misunderstood than from those who have 
opposed it. Of the multitudes who confess 
Christianity at this hour, how many have clear 
in their minds the cardinal distinction estab- 
lished by its Founder between *'born of the 
flesh" and *'born of the Spirit?'* By how 
many teachers of Christianity even is not 
this fundamental postulate persistently ig- 
nored? A thousand modern pulpits every 
seventh day are preaching the doctrine of Spon- 
taneous Generation. The finest and best of re- 
cent poetry is colored with this same error. 

Spontaneous Generation is the leading theol- 
ogy of the modern religious or irreligious 
novel; and must of the most serious and cul- 
tured writing of the day devotes itself to earn- 
est preaching of this impossible gospel. The 
current conception of the Christian religion is 



r, BIOGENESIS. 83 

short -Pthe conception which is held not only 
popularly but by men of culture — is founded 
upon a view of its origin which, if it were true, 
would render the whole scheme abortive. 

Let us first place vividly in our imagination 
the pictures of the two great Kingdoms of 
Nature, the inorganic and organic, as these 
now stand in the light of the Law of Biogene- 
sis. What essentially is involved in saying 
that there is no Spontaneous Generation of 
Life? It is meant that the passage from the 
mineral world to the plant or animal world is 
hermetically sealed on the mineral side. This 
Inorganic world is staked off from the living 
world by barriers which have never yet been 
crossed from within. No change of substance, 
no modification of environment, no chemistry, 
no electricity, nor'any form of energy, nor any 
evolution can endow any single atom of the 
mineral world with the attribute of Life. Only 
by bending down into this dead world of some 
living form can these dead atoms be gifted with 
the properties of vitality, without this prelimi- 
nary contact with Life they remain fixed in the 
inorganic sphere forever. It is a very myste- 
rious Law which guards in this way the portals 
of the living world. And if there is one thing 
in Nature more worth pondering for its strange- 
ness it is the spectacle of this vast helpless 
world of the dead cut off from the living by the 
Law of Biogenesis and denied forever the pos- 
sibility of resurrection within itself. So very 
strange a thing, indeed, is this broad line in 
Nature, that Science has long and urgently 



84 BIOGENESIS. 

sought to obliterate it. Biogenesis stands in 
the way of some forms of Evolution with such 
stern persistency that the assaults upon this 
Law for number and thoroughness have been 
unparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has 
stood the test. Nature, to the modern eye, 
stands broken in two. The Physical Laws may 
explain the Inorganic world; the biological 
Laws may account for the development of the 
Organic. But of the point where they meet, of 
that strange borderland between the dead and 
living, Science is silent. It is as if God had 
placed everything in earth and heaven in the 
hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the 
genesis of Life for His direct appearing. 

The power of the analogy, for which we are 
laying the foundations, to seize and impress 
the mind, will largely depend on the vividness 
with which one realizes the gulf which Nature 
places between the living and the dead.* But 

* This being the crucial point, it may not be inappropriate 
to supplement the quotations already given in the text with the 
following:: 

"We are in the presence of the one incommunicable gulf— the 
gulf of all gulfs— that gulf of which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is 
as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has 
ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into it 
—the mighty gulf between death and life."— "As Regards Pro- 
toplasm." By J. Hutchinson Sterling, LL.D., p. 42. 

"The present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link be- 
tvween the living and the not-living."— Huxley. "Encyclopedia 
Brittanica." (new Ed.) Art. "Biology." 

"Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the 
attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for 
the generatio oequivoca in the lower forms of transition from 
the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious 
to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in 
any way accepted as the basis of all our views of life."— Vir- 
chow: "The Freedom of Science in the Modern State." "All 
really scientific experience tells us that life can be produced 
from a living antecedent only."— "The Unseen Universe." 6th 
Ed. p. 229. 



BIOGENESIS. 85 

those who, in contemplating Nature, have 
found their attention arrested by this extraor- 
dinary dividing-line severing the visible uni- 
verse eternally in two; those who, in watching 
the progress of science, have seen barrier after 
barrier disappear — barrier betv^^een plant and 
plant, between animal and animal, and even 
between animal and plant — but this gulf 3^awns 
more hopelessly wide with every advance of 
knowledge, will be prepared to attach a signifi- 
cance to the Law of Biogenesis and its analo- 
gies more profound perhaps than to any other 
fact or law in Nature. If, as Pascal says, 
Nature is an image of grace ; if the things that 
are seen are in any sense the images of the un- 
seen, there must lie in this great gulf fixed, 
this most unique and startling of all natural 
phenomena, a meaning of peculiar moment. 

Where now in the Spiritual spheres shall we 
meet a companion phenomenon to this? What 
in the Unseen shall be likened this deep divid- 
ing-line, or where in human experience is 
another barrier which never can be crossed? 

There is such a barrier. In the dim but not 
inadequate vivSion of the Spiritual World pre- 
sented in the Word of God, the first thing that 
strikes the eye is a great gulf fixed. The pas- 
sage from the Natural World to the Spiritual 
World is hermetically sealed on the natural 
side. The door from the inorganic to the 
organic is shut, no mineral can open it; so the 
door from the natural to the spiritual is shut, 
and no man can open it. This world of natu- 
ral men is staked off from the Spiritual World 



86 BIOGENESIS. 

by barriers which have never yet been crossed 
from within. No organic change, no modifica- 
tion, of environment, no mental energy, no 
moral effort, no evolution of character, no 
progress of civilization can endow any single 
human soul, with the attribute of Spiritual 
Life. The Spiritual World is guarded from 
the world next in order beneath it by a law of 
Biogenesis — except a man be born again . . . 
except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 

It is not said in this enunciation of the law, 
that if the condition be not fulfilled the natu- 
ral man will not enter the Kingdom of God. 
The word is, cannot. For the exclusion of 
spiritually inorganic from the Kingdom of the 
spiritually organic is not arbitrary. Nor is the 
natural man refused admission on unexplained 
grounds. His admission is a scientific impos- 
sibility. Except a mineral be born **from 
above" — from the Kingdom just above it — it 
cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And 
except a man be born '*from above," bj'- the 
same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just 
above him. There being no passage from one 
Kingdom to another, whether from inorganic 
to orgainic, or from organic to spiritual, the 
intervention of Life is a scientific necessity if a 
stone or an animal or a man is to pass from a 
lower to a higher sphere. The plant stretches 
down to the dead world beneath it, touches its 
minerals and gases with its mystery of Life, 
and brings them up ennobled and transformed 
to the living sphere. The breath of God, blow- 



BIOGENESIS. 87 

ing where it listeth, touches with its mystery 
of Life the dead souls of men, bears them 
across the bridgeless gulf between the natural 
and the spiritual, between the spiritually inor- 
ganic and the spiritually organic, endows them 
with its own high qualities, and develops 
within them these new and secret faculties, by 
which those who are born again are said to see 
the Kingdom of God. 

What is the evidence for this great gulf fixed 
at the portals of the Spiritual World? Does 
Science close this gate, or Reason, or Experi- 
ence, or Revelation? We reply, all four. The 
initial statement, it is not to be denied, reaches 
us from Revelation. But is not this evidence 
here in court? Or shall it be said that any 
argument deduced from this is a transparent 
circle — that, after all, we simply come back to 
the unsubstantiality of the ipse dixit. Not 
altogether, for the analogy lends an altogether 
new authority to the ipse dixit. How substan- 
tial that argument really is, is seldom realized. 
We yield the point here much too easily. The 
right of the Spiritual World to speak of its own 
phenomena is as secure as the right of the Nat- 
ural World to speak of itself. What is Science 
but what the Natural World has said to nat- 
ural men? What is Revelation but what the 
Spiritual World has said to Spiritual men? Let 
us at least ask what Revelation has announced 
with reference to the Spiritual Law of Bio- 
genesis; afterwards we shall inquire whether 
Science, while endorsing the verdict, may not 



88 BIOGENESIS. 

also have some further vindication of its title 
to be heard. 

The words of Scripture which preface this 
inquiry contain an explicit and original state- 
ment of the Law of Biogenesis for the Spiritual 
Life. ''He that hath the Son hath Life, and 
he that hath not the Son of God hath not 
Life. " Life, that is to say, depends upon con- 
tact with Life. It cannot spring up of itself. 
It cannot develop out of anything that is not 
Life. There is no Spontaneous Generation in 
religion any more than in Nature. Christ is 
the source of Life in the Spiritual World ; and 
he that hath the Son hath Life, and he that 
hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, 
hath not Life. Here, in short, is the categor- 
ical denial of Abiogenesis and the establish- 
ment in this high field of the classical formula 
Omne viviim ex vivo — no Life without antece- 
dent Life. In this mystical theory of the Origin 
of Life the whole of the New Testament writ- 
ers are agreed. And, as we have already seen, 
Christ Himself founds Christianity upon Bio- 
genesis stated in its most literal form. ''Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit 
he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Mar- 
vel not that I said unto you, ye must be born 
again."* Why did He add Marvel not? Did 
He seek to allay the fear in the bewildered 
ruler's mind that there was more in this novel 

* John iii. 



BIOGENESIS. 89 

doctrine than a simple analogy from the first 
to the second birth? 

The attitude of the natural man, again, with 
reference to the Spiritual, is a subject on which 
the New Testament is equally pronounced. 
Not only in his relation to the spiritual man, 
but to the whole Spiritual World, the natural 
man is regarded as dead. He is as a crystal to 
an organism. The natural world is to the 
Spiritual as the inorganic to the organic. "To 
be carnally minded is Death.' '"^ "Thou hast a 
name to live, but art Dead.'"\ "She that liv- 
eth in pleasure is Dead while she liveth. "J 
"To you hath He given Life which were Dead 
in trespasses and sins. "|] 

It is clear that a remarkable harmony exists 
here between the Organic World as arranged 
by Science and the Spiritual World as arranged 
by Scripture. We find one great Law guard- 
ing the thresholds of both worlds, securing that 
entrance from a lower sphere shall only take 
place by a direct regenerating act, and that 
emanating from the world next in order above. 
There are not two laws of Biogenesis, one for 
the natural, the other for the Spiritual; one 
law is for both. Wherever there is Life, Life 
of any kind, this same law holds. The anal- 
ogy, therefore, is only among the phenomena; 
between laws there is no analogy — there is 
Continuity. In either case, the first step in 
peopling these worlds with the appropriate liv- 
ing forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case 
is there less of mystery in the act than in the 

* Rom. viii. 6. f Rev. iii. 1. % 1 Tim. v. 6. || Eph. ii. 1, 5. 



90 BIOGENESIS. 

other. The second birth is scarcely less per- 
plexing to the theologian than the first to the 
embryologist. 

A moment*s reflection ought now to make it 
clear why in the Spiritual World there had to 
be added to this mystery the further mystery 
of its proclamation through the medium of 
Revelation. This is the point at which the 
scientific man is apt to part company with the 
theologian. He insists on having all things 
materialized before his eyes in Nature. If 
Nature cannot discuss this with him, there is 
nothing to discuss. But Nature can discuss 
this with him — only she cannot open the dis- 
cussion or supply all the material to begin 
with. If Science averred that she could do 
this, the theologian this time must part com- 
pany with such Science. For any Science 
which makes such a demand is false to the doc- 
trines of Biogenesis. What is this but the 
demand that a lower world, hermetically sealed 
against all communication with a world above 
it, should have a mature and intelligent 
acquaintance with its phenomena and laws? 
Can the mineral discourse to me of animal 
Life? Can it tell me what lies beyond the nar- 
row boundary of its inert being? Knowing 
nothing of other than the chemical and physi- 
cal laws, what is its criticism worth of the prin- 
ciples of Biology? And even when some vis- 
itor from the upper world, for example, some 
root from a living tree, penetrating its dark 
recess, honors it with a touch, will it presume 
to define the form and purpose of its patron, 



BIOGENESIS. 91 

or until the bioplasm has done its gracious^ 
work can it even know that it is being touched?' 
The barrier which separates Kingdoms from 
one another restricts mind not less than mat-^ 
ter. Any information of the Kingdoms above 
it that could come to the mineral world could 
only come by a communication from above. 
An analogy from the lower world might make 
such communication intelligible as well as 
credible but the information in the first in- 
stance must be vouchsafed as a revelation. 
Similarly if those in the Organic Kingdom are 
to know anything of the Spiritual World, that 
knowledge must at least begin as Revelation. 
Men who reject this source of information, by 
the Law of Biogenesis, can have no other. It 
is no spell of ignorance arbitrarily laid upon 
certain members of the Organic Kingdom that 
prevents them reading the secrets of the Spir- 
itual World. It is a scientific necessity. Na 
exposition of the case could be more truly sci- 
entific than this: **The natural man receive th 
not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they^ 
are foolishness unto him : neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned. '^"^ 
The verb here, it will be again observed, is- 
potential. This is not a dogma of theology, 
but a necessity of Science. And Science, for 
the most part, has consistently accepted the 
situation. It has always proclaimed its igno- 
rance of the Spiritual World. When Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer affirms, *' Regarding Science as a 
gradually increasing sphere we may say that 

* 1 Cor. ii. 14. 



92 BIOGENESIS. 

every addition to its surface does but bring it 
into wider contact with surrounding nesci- 
ence,"* from his standpoint he is quite cor- 
rect. The endeavors of well-meaning persons 
to show that the Agnostic's position, when he 
asserts his ignorance of the Spiritual World, is 
only a pretence ; the attempts to prove that he 
really knows a great deal about it if he would 
only admit it, are quite misplaced. He really 
does not know. The verdict that the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God, that they are foolishness unto him, that 
neither can he know them, is final as a state- 
ment of scientific truth — a statement of which 
the entire Agnostic literature is simply one 
long commentary. 

We are now in a better position to follow out 
the more practical bearings of Biogenesis. 
There is an immense region surrounding Re- 
generation, a dark and perplexing region 
where men would be thankful for any light. 
It may well be that Biogenesis in its many 
ramifications may yet reach down to some of 
the deeper mysteries of the Spiritual Life. 
But meantime there is much to define even on 
the surface. And for the present we shall con- 
tent ourselves by turning its light upon one or 
two points of current interest. 

It must long ago have appeared how decisive 
is the answer of Science to the practical ques- 
tion with which we set out as to the possibility 
of a Spontaneous Development of Spiritual 
Life in the individual soul. The inquiry into 

* "First Principles," 2d Ed., p. 17. 



BIOGENESIS. 93 

the Origin of Life is the fundamental question 
alike of Biology and Christianity. We can 
afford to enlarge upon it, therefore, even at 
the risk of repetition. When men are offering 
us a Christianity without a living Spirit, and a 
personal religion without conversion, no em- 
phasis or reiteration can be extreme. Besides, 
the clearness as well as the definiteness of the 
Testimony of Nature to any Spiritual truth is 
of immense importance. Regeneration has not 
merely been an outstanding difficulty, but an 
overwhelming obscurity. Even to earnest 
minds the difficulty of grasping the truth at all 
has always proved extreme. Philosophically 
one scarcely sees either the necessity or the 
possibility of being born again. Why a virtu- 
ous man should not simply grow better and 
better until in his own right he enter the King- 
dom of God is what thousands honestly and sin- 
cerely fail to understand. Now, Philosophy 
cannot help us here. Her arguments are, if 
anything, against us. But Science answers to 
the appeal at once. If it be simply pointed out 
that this is the same absurdity as to ask why 
a stone should not grow more and more living 
till it enters the Organic World, the point is 
clear in an instant. 

What now, let us ask specifically, distin- 
guishes a Christian man from a non-Christian 
man? Is it that he has certain mental charac- 
teristics not possessed by the other? Is it that 
certain faculties have been trained in him, 
that morality assumes special and higher man- 
ifestations, and character a nobler form? Is 



94 BIOGENESIS. 

the Christian merely an ordinary man who 
happens from birth to hare been surrounded 
with a peculiar set of ideas? Is his religion 
merely that peculiar quality of the moral life 
defined by Mr. Matthew Arnold as ** morality 
touched by emotion?" And does the posses- 
sion of a high ideal, benevolent sympathies, a 
reverent spirit, and a favorable environment 
account for what men call his Spiritual Life? 

The distinction between them is the same as 
that between the organic and the inor2:anic, 
the living and the dead. What is the differ- 
ence between a crystal and an organism, a 
stone and a plant? They have much in com- 
mon. Both are made of the same atoms. 
Both display the same properties of matter. 
Both are subject to the Physical Laws. Both 
may be very beautiful. But besides posses- 
sing all that the crystal has, the plant^possesses 
something more — a mysterious something 
called Life. This Life is not something which 
existed in the crystal only in a less developed 
form. There is nothing at all like it in the 
crystal. There is nothing like the first begin- 
ning of it in the crystal, not a trace or symptom 
of it. This plant is tenanted b)^ something 
new, an original and unique possession added 
over and above all the properties common to 
both. When from vegetable Life we rise to 
animal life, here again we find something 
original and unique — unique at least as com- 
pared with the mineral. From animal Life we 
ascend again to Spiritual Life. And here also 
is something new, something still more 



BIOGENESIS. 95 

unique. He who lives the Spiritual Life has 
a distinct kind of Life added to all the other 
phases of Life which he manifests — a kind of 
Life infinitely more distinct than is the active 
Life of a plant from the inertia of a stone. 
The Spiritual man is more distinct in point of 
fact than is the plant from the stone. This is 
the one possible comparison in Nature, for it is 
the wildest distinction in Nature; but com- 
pared with the difference between the Natural 
and the Spiritual gulf which divides the or- 
ganic from the inorganic is a hair's-breadth. 
The natural man belongs essentially to this 
present order of things. He is endowed sim- 
ply with a high quality of the natural animal 
Life. But it is Life of so poor a quality that it 
is not Life at all. He that hath not the Son 
hath not Life; but he that hath the Son hath 
Life — a new and distinct and supernatural en- 
dowment. He is not of this world. He is of 
the timeless state; of Eternity. It doth not 
yet appear what he shall be. 

The difference then between the Spiritual 
man and the Natural man is not a difference of 
development, but of generation. It is a distinc- 
tion of quality, not of quantity. A man cannot 
rise by any natural development from "mor- 
ality touched by emotion,*' to ''morality 
touched by Life. ' ' Were we to construct a 
scientific classification, Science would compel 
us to arrange all natural men, moral or im- 
moral, educated or vulgar, as one family. 
One might be high in the family group, 
another low ; yet, practically, they are marked 



m BIOGENESIS. 

by the same set of characteristics — they eat, 
sleep, work, think, live, die. But the Spirit- 
ual man is removed from his family so utterly 
by the possession of an additional characteris- 
tic that a biologist, fully informed of the whole 
circumstance, would not hesitate a moment to 
classify him elsewhere. And if he really 
entered into these circumstances it would not 
be in another family, but in another Kingdom. 
It is an old-fashioned theology which divides 
the world in this way — which speaks of men as 
Living and Dead, Lost and Saved — a stern 
theology all but fallen into disuse. This differ- 
ence between the Living and the Dead in souls 
is so unproved by casual observation, so impal- 
pable in itself, so startling as a doctrine, that 
schools of culture have ridiculed or denied the 
grim distinction. Nevertheless, the grim dis- 
tinction must be retained. It is a scientific 
distinction. *'He that hath not the Son hath 
not Life." 

Now it is this great Law which finally dis- 
tinguishes Christianity from all other religions. 
It places the religion of Christ upon a footing 
altogether unique. 

There is no analogy between the Christian 
religion and, say. Buddhism or the Mohamme- 
dan religion. There is no true sense in which 
a man can say, He that hath Buddha hath 
Life. Buddha has nothing to do with Life. 
He may have something to do with morality. 
He may stimulate, impress, teach, guide, but 
there is no distinct new thing added to the 
souls of those who profess Buddhism. These 




Superstition fleeing before Religion and Science. 

J^atural Law in the Spiritual World. 



BIOGENESIS. 97 

religions may be developments of the natural, 
mental, or moral man. But Christianity pro- 
fesses to be more. It is the mental or moral 
man plus something else or some One else. It 
is the infusion into the Spiritual man of a 
New Life, of a quality unlike anything else in 
Nature. This constitutes the separate King- 
dom of Christ, and gives to Christianity alone, 
of all the religions of mankind, the strange 
mark of Divinity. 

Shall we next inquire more precisely what is 
this something extra which constitutes Spirit- 
ual Life? What is this strange and new endow- 
ment in its nature and vital essence? And the 
answer is brief — it is Christ. He that hath the 
Son hath Life. 

Are we forsaking the lines of Science in say- 
ing so? Yes and No. Science has drawn for 
us the distinction. It has no voice as to the 
nature of the distinction except this — that the 
new endowment is a something different from 
anything else with which it deals. It is not 
ordinary Vitality, it is not intellectual, it is 
not moral, but something beyond. And Rev- 
elation steps in and names what it is — it is 
Christ. Out of the multitude of sentences 
where this announcement is made, these few 
may be selected: "Know ye not your own 
selves how that Jesus Christ is in you?"* 
**Your bodies are the members of Christ."** 
**At that day ye shall know that I am in the 
Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. "f "We 
will come unto him and make our abode with 



* 2 Cor. xii. 5. ** 1 Cor. vi. 15. t John xiv. 10. 

7 Natural Law 



98 BIOGENESIS. 

him."* ''I am the Vine, ye are the branches, "f 
*'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I 
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. "J 

Three things are clear from these state- 
ments: First, they are not mere figures of 
rhetoric. They are explicit declarations. If 
language means anything, these v^ords an- 
nounce a literal fact. In some of Christ's own 
statements the literalism is, if possible, still 
more impressive. For instance, ''Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his 
blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth 
My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal 
life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 
For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is 
drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and 
drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in 
him." 

In the second place, Spiritual Life is not 
something outside ourselves. The idea is not 
that Christ is in heaven and that we can stretch 
out some mysterious faculty and deal with Him 
there. This is the vague form in which many 
conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's 
teaching and to the analogy of nature. Veg- 
etable Life is not contained in a reservoir 
somewhere in the skies, and measured out 
spasmodically at certain seasons. The Life is 
in every plant and tree, inside its own sub- 
stance and tissues, and continues there until it 
dies. This localization of Life in the individ- 
ual is precisely the point where Vitality differs 
from the other forces of nature, such as mag- 

* John xiv. 21-^3. f John xv. 4. J Gal. ii. 20. 



BIOGENESIS. 99 

netism and electricity. Vitality has much in 
common with such forces as magnetism and 
electricity, but there is one inviolable distinc- 
tion between them — that Life is permanently 
fixed and rooted in the organism. The doc- 
trines of conservation and transformation of 
energy, that is to say, do not hold for Vitality. 
The electrician can demagnetize a bar of iron, 
that is, he can transform its energy of magnet- 
ism into something else — heat, or motion, or 
light — and then re-form these back into mag- 
netism. For magnetism has no root, no indi- 
viduality, no fixed indwelling. But the biolo- 
gist cannot devitalize a plant or an animal and 
revivify it again.* Life is not one of the home- 
less forces which promiscuously inhabit space, 
or which can be gathered like electricity from 
the clouds and dissipated back again into space. 
Life is definite and resident; and Spiritual Life 
is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant 
in the soul. 

This is, however, to formulate the statement 
of the third point, that spiritual Life is not an 
ordinary form of energy or force. The analogy 
from Nature endorses this, but here Nature 
stops. It cannot say what Spiritual Life is. 
Indeed what natural Life is remains unknown, 
and the word Life still wanders through Science 
without a definition. Nature is silent, there- 



* One must not be misled by popular statements in this con- 
nection, such as this of Professor Owen's: "There are organ- 
isms which we can devitalize and revitalize— devive and revive 
—many times." (Monthly Microscopical Journal, May, 1869, p. 
294.) The reference is of course to the extraordinary capacity 
for resuscitation possessed by many of the Protozoa and other 
low forms of life. 

LrfC. 



100 BIOGENESIS. 

fore, and must be as to Spiritual Life. But in 
the absence of natural light we fall back upon 
that complementary revelation which always 
shines when truth is necessary and where 
Nature fails. We ask with Paul, when this Life 
first visited him on the Damascus road, What 
is this? *^Who art Thou Lord?" And we 
hear, "I am Jesus."* 

We must expect to find this denied. Besides 
a proof from Revelation, this is an argument 
from experience. And yet we shall still be told 
that this Spiritual Life is a force. But let it 
be remembered what this means in Science, it 
means the heresy of confounding Force with 
Vitality. We must also expect to be told that 
this Spiritual Life is simply a development of 
ordinary Life — just as Dr. Bastian tells us that 
natural Life is formed according to the same 
laws which determine the more simple chem- 
ical combinations. But remember what this 
means in Science. It is the heresy of Sponta- 
neous Generation, a heresy so thoroughly dis- 
credited now that scarcely an authority in 
Europe will lend his name to it. Who art 
Thou, Lord? Unless we are to be allowed to 
hold Spontaneous Generation there is no 
alternative: Life can only come from Life: 
''I am Jesus. " 

A hundred other questions now rush into the 
mind about this Life: How does it come? 
Why does it come? How is it manifested? 
What faculty does it employ? Where does it 
reside? Is it communicable? What are its 

*Acts ix. 5. 



BIOGENESIS. 101 

conditions? One or two of these questions may 
by vaguely answered, the rest bring us face to 
face with mystery. Let it not be thought that 
the scientific treatment of a Spiritual subject 
has reduced religion to a problem of physics, 
or demonstrated God by the law^s of biology. 
A religion without mystery is an absurdity. 
Even Science has its mysteries, none more 
inscrutable than around this Science of Life. 
It taught us sooner or later to expect mystery, 
and now we enter its domain. Let it be care- 
fully marked, however, that the cloud does not 
fall and cover us till we have ascertained the 
most momentous truth of Religion — that Christ 
is in the Christian. 

Not that there is anything new in this. The 
Churches have always held that Christ was the 
source of Life. No spiritual man ever claims 
that his spirituality is his own. ''I live," he 
will tell you; * 'nevertheless it is not I, but 
Christ liveth in me." Christ, our Life, has 
indeed been the only doctrine in the Christian 
Church from Paul to Augustine, from Calvin 
to Newman. Yet, when the Spiritual man is 
cross-examined upon this confession it is aston- 
ishing to find what uncertain hold it has upon 
his mind. Doctrinally he states it adequately 
and holds it unhesitatingly. But when pressed 
with the literal question he shrinks from the 
answer. We do not really believe that the 
Living Christ has touched us, that He makes 
His abode in us. Spiritual Life is not as real 
to us as natural Life. And we cover our 
retreat into unbeHeving vagueness with a plea 



102 BIOGENESIS. 

of reverence, justified, as we think, by the 
*'Thus far and no farther" of ancient Scrip- 
tures. There is often a great deal of intellectual 
sin concealed under this old aphorism. When 
men do not really wish to go farther they find 
it an honorable convenience sometimes to sit 
down on the outermost edge of the Holy 
Ground on the pretext of taking off their shoes. 
Yet we must be certain that, making a virtue 
of reverence, we are not merely excusing igno- 
rance; or, under the plea of mystery, evading 
a truth which has been stated in the New 
Testament a hundred times, in the most literal 
form, and with all but monotonous repetition. 
The greatest truths are always the most loosely 
held. And not the least of the advantages of 
taking up this question from the present stand- 
point is that we may see how a confused doc- 
trine can really bear the luminous definition of 
Science and force itself upon us with all the 
weight of Natural Law. 

What is mystery to many men, what feeds 
their worship, and at the same time spoils it, 
is that area round all great truth which is really 
capable of illumination, and into which every 
earnest mind is permitted and commanded to 
go with a light. We cry mystery long before 
the region of mystery comes. True mystery 
casts no shadows around. It is a sudden and 
awful gulf yawning across the field of knowl- 
edge ; its form is irregular, but its lips are clean 
cut and sharp, and the mind can go to the very 
verge and look down the precipice into the 
I dim abyss, — 



BIOGENESIS. 103 

** Where writhing clouds unroll, 
Striving to utter themselves in shapes." 

We have gone with a light to the very verge of 
this truth. We have seen that the Spiritual 
Life is an endowment from the Spiritual 
World, and that the Living Spirit of Christ 
dwells in the Christian. But now the gulf 
yawns black before us. What more does 
Science know of Life? Nothing. It knows 
nothing further about its origin in detail. It 
knows nothing about its ultimate nature. It 
cannot even define it. There is a helplessness 
in scientific books here, and a continual con- 
fession of it which to thoughtful minds is 
almost touching. Science, therefore, has not 
eliminated the true mysteries from our faith, 
but only the false. And it has done more. It 
has made true mystery scientific. Religion in 
having mystery is in analogy with all around 
it. Where there is exceptional mystery in the 
Spiritual world it will generally be found that 
there is a corresponding mystery in the natural 
world. And, as Origen centuries ago insisted, 
the difficulties of Religion are simply the diffi- 
culties of Nature. 

One question more we may look at for a 
moment. What can be gathered on the sur- 
face as to the process of Regeneration in the 
individual soul? From the analogies of Biol- 
ogy we should expect three things : First, that 
the New Life should dawn suddenly; Second, 
that it should come ''without observation"; 
Third, that it should develop gradually. On 
two of these points there can be little contro- 



104 BIOGENESIS. 

versy. The gradualness of growth is a char- 
acteristic which strikes the simplest observer. 
Long before the word Evolution vs^as coined 
Christ applied it in this very connection — * ' First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in 
the ear. " It is well known also to those who 
study the parables of Nature that there is an 
ascending scale of slowness as we rise in the 
scale of Life. Growth is most gradual in the 
highest forms. Man attains his maturity after 
a score of years; the monad completes its 
humble cycle in a day. What wonder if devel- 
opment be tardy in the Creature of Eternity? 
A Christian's sun has sometimes set, and a 
critical world has seen as yet no corn in the 
ear. As yet? **As yet,'' in this long Life, 
has not begun. Grant him the years propor- 
tionate to his place in the scale of Life. *'The 
tim e of harvest is not yet. ' ' 

Again, in addition to being slow, the phe- 
nomena of growth are secret. Life is invis- 
ible. When the New Life manifests itself it 
is a surprise. Thou canst not tell whence it 
Cometh or whither it goeth. When the plant 
lives whence has the Life come? When it dies 
whither has it gone? Thou canst not tell . . . 
so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 
For the Kingdom of God cometh without 
observation. 

Yet once more, — and this is a point of strange 
and frivolous dispute, — this Life comes sud- 
denly. This is the only way in which Life can 
come. Life cannot come gradually — health 
can, structure can, but not Life. A new the. 



BIOGENESIS. 105 

ology has laughed at the Doctrine of Conver- 
sion. Sudden Conversion especially has been 
ridiculed as untrue to philosophy and impos- 
sible to human nature. We may not be con- 
cerned in buttressing any theology because it 
is old. But we find that this old theology is 
scientific. There may be cases — they are prob- 
ably in the majority — where the moment of 
contact with the Living Spirit though sudden 
has been obscure. But the real moment and 
the conscious moment are two different things. 
Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious 
moment. If it did it would probably say that 
that was seldom the real moment — ^just as in 
the natural Life the conscious moment is not 
the real moment. The moment of birth in the 
natural world is not a conscious moment — we 
do not know we are born till long afterward. 
Yet there are men to whom the Origin of the 
New Life in time has been no difficulty. To 
Paul, for instance, Christ seems to have come 
at a definite period of time, the exact moment 
and second of which could have been known. 
And this is certainly, in theory at least, the 
normal Origin of Life, according to the prin- 
ciples of Biology. The line between the liv- 
ing and the dead is a sharp line. When the 
dead atoms of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, 
Nitrogen, are seized upon by Life, the organ- 
ism at first is very lowly. It possesses few 
functions. It has little beauty. Growth is 
the work of time. But Life is not. That 
comes in a moment. At one moment it was 
dead; the next it lived. This is conversion, 

8 Natural Law 



106 BIOGENESIS. 

the **passing/' as the Bible calls it, ''from 
Death unto Life. ' ' Those who have stood by 
another's side at the solemn hour of this dread 
possession have been conscious sometimes of 
an experience which words are not allowed to 
utter — a something like the sudden snapping 
of a chain, the waking from a dream. 



DEGENERATION. 



107 



"I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vine- 
yard of the man void of understanding ; and lo, it was 
all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the 
face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken 
down. Then I saw and considered it well; I looked 
upon it and received instruction." — Solomon. 



108 



DEGENERATION. 

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salva- 
tion?" — Hebrews. 

"We have as possibilities either Balance, or Elabora- 
tion, or Degeneration."— E. Ray Lankester. 

In one of his best known books, Mr. Darwin 
brings out a fact W'hich may be illustrated in 
some such way as this: Suppose a bird fancier 
collects a flock of tame pigeons distinguished 
by all the infinite ornamentations of their race. 
They are of all kinds, of every shade of color, 
and adorned with every variety of marking. He 
takes them to an uninhabited island and allows 
them to fly off wild into the woods. They 
found a colony there, and after the lapse of 
many years the owner returns to the spot. He 
will find that a remarkable change has taken 
place in the interval. The birds, or their de- 
scendants rather, have all become changed into 
the same color. The black, the white and the 
dun, the striped, the spotted, and the ringed, 
are all metamorphosed into one — a dark slaty 
blue. Two plain black bands monotonously 
repeat themselves upon the wings of each, and 
the loins beneath are white; but all the vari- 
ety, all the beautiful colors, all the old graces 
of form it may be, have disappeared. These 
improvements w^ere the result of care and nur- 
ture, of domestication, of civilization; and 

109 



110 DEGENERATION. 

now that these influences are removed, the 
birds themselves undo the past and lose what 
they had gained. The attempt to elevate the 
race has been mysteriously thwarted. It is as 
if the original bird, the far remote ancestor of 
all doves, had been blue, and these had been 
compelled by some strange law to discard the 
badges of their civilization and conform to the 
ruder image of the first. The natural law by 
which such a change occurs is called The Prin- 
ciple of Reversion to Type. 

It is a proof of the universality of this law 
that the same thing will happen with a plant. 
A garden is planted, let us say, with straw- 
berries and roses, and for a number of years is 
left alone. In process of time it will run to 
waste. But this does not mean that the plants 
will really waste away, but that they will 
change into something else, and, as it invari- 
ably appears, into something worse ; in the one 
case, namely, into the small, wild strawberry 
of the woods, and in the other into the primi- 
tive dog-rose of the hedges. 

If we neglect a garden plant, then, a natural 
principle of deterioration comes in, and 
changes it into a worse plant. And if we 
neglect a bird, by the same imperious law it 
will be gradually changed into an uglier bird. 
Or if we neglect almost any of the domestic 
animals, they will rapidly revert to wild and 
worthless forms again. 

Now the same thing exactly would happen 
in the case of you or me. Why should Man be 
an exception to any of the laws of Nature? 



DEGENERATION. Ill 

Nature knows him simply as an animal — Sub- 
kingdom Vertebrata^ Class Mammalia^ Order 
Bima7ia, And the law of Reversion to Type 
runs through all creation. If a man neglect 
himself for a few years he will change into a 
worse man and a lower man. If it is his body 
that he neglects, he will deteriorate into a 
wild and bestial savage — like the de-human- 
ized men who are discovered sometimes upon 
desert islands. If it is his mind, it will degen- 
erate into imbecility and madness — solitary 
confinement has the power to unmake men's 
minds and leave them idiots. If he neglect 
his conscience, it will run off into lawlessness 
and vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must 
inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. 

We have here, then, a thoroughly natural 
basis for the question before us. If we neg- 
lect, with this universal principle staring us 
in the face, how shall we escape? If we neg- 
lect the ordinary means of keeping a garden 
in order, how shall it escape running to weeds 
and waste? Or, if we neglect the opportu- 
nities for cultivating the mind, how shall it 
escape ignorance and feebleness? So, if we 
neglect the soul, how shall it escape the natu- 
ral retrograde movement, the inevitable 
relapse unto barrenness and death? 

It is not necessary, surely, to pause for proof 
that there is such a retrograde principle in the 
being of every man. It is demonstrated by 
facts, and by the analogy of all Nature. Three 
possibilities of life, according to Science, are 
open to all living organisms — Balance, Evolu- 



112 DEGENERATION. 

tion, and Degeneration. The first denotes the 
precarious persistence of a life along what 
looks like a level path, a character which 
seems to hold its own alike against the attacks 
of evil and the appeals of good. It implies a 
set of circumstances so balanced by choice of 
fortune that they neither influence for better 
nor for worse. But except in theory this state 
of equilibrium, normal in the inorganic king- 
dom, is really foreign in the world of life ; and 
what seems inertia may be a true Evolution 
unnoticed from its slowness, or likelier still a 
movement of Degeneration subtly obliterating, 
as it falls, the very traces of its former height. 
From this state of apparent Balance, Evolution 
is the escape in the upward direction, Degen- 
eration in the lower. But Degeneration, 
rather than Balance or Elaboration, is the pos- 
sibility of life embraced by the majority of 
mankind. And the choice is determined by 
man's own nature. The life of Balance is diffi- 
cult. It lies on the verge of continual tempta- 
tion, its perpetual adjustments become fatigu- 
ing, its measured virtue is monotonous and un- 
inspiring. More difficult still, apparently, is 
the life of ever upward growth. Most men 
attempt it for a time, but growth is slow ; and 
despair overtakes them while the goal is far 
away. Yet none of these reasons fully ex- 
plains the fact that the alternative which re- 
mains is adopted by the majority of men. 
That Degeneration is easy onl}'- half accounts 
for it. Why is it easy? Why but that already 
in each man's very nature this principle is 



DEGENERATION. 113 

supreme? He feels within his soul a silent 
drifting motion impelling him downward with 
irresistible force. Instead of aspiring to Con- 
version to a higher Type he submits by a law 
of his nature to Reversion to a lower. This is 
Degeneration — that principle by which the 
organism, failing to develop itself, failing 
even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, and 
becomes more and more adapted to a degraded 
formoflife. 

All men who know themselves are conscious 
that this tendency, deep-rooted and active, ex- 
ists within their nature. Theologically it is 
described as a gravitation, a bias toward evil 
The Bible view is that man is conceived in sin 
and shapen in iniquity. And experience tells 
him that he will shape himself into further 
sin and ever-deepening iniquity without the 
smallest effort, without in the least intending 
it, and in the most natural way in the world 
if he simply let his life run. It is on this prin- 
ciple that^ completing the conception, the 
wicked are said further in the Bible to be lost. 
They are not really lost as yet^ but they are on 
the sure way to it The bias of their lives are 
in full action., There is no drag on anywhere. 
The natural tendencies are having it all their 
own way; and although the victims may be 
quite unconscious that all this is going on, it is 
patent to every one who considers even the 
natural bearings of the case that **the end of 
these things is Deatho" When we see a man 
fall from the top of a five-story house, we say 
the man is lost. We say that before he has 



114 DEGENERATION. 

fallen a foot; for the same principle that made 
him fall the one foot will undoubtedly make 
him complete the descent by falling other 
eighty or ninety feet. So that he is a dead 
man, or a lost man from the very first. The 
gravitation of sin in a human soul acts pre- 
cisely in the same way. Gradually, with 
gathering momentum it sinks a man further 
and further from God and righteousness, and 
lands him, by the sheer action of a natural law, 
in the hell of a neglected life. 

But the lesson is not less clear from analogy. 
Apart even from the law of Degeneration, 
apart from Reversion to Type, there is in 
every living organism a law of Death. We are 
wont to imagine that Nature is full of Life. In 
reality it is full of Death. One cannot say it 
is natural for a plant to live. Examine its 
nature fully, and you have to admit that its 
natural tendency is to die. It is kept from 
dying by a mere temporary endowment, which 
gives it an ephemeral dominion over the ele- 
ments — gives it power to utilize for a brief 
span the rain, the sunshine, and the air. With- 
draw this temporary endowment for a moment 
and its true nature is revealed. Instead of 
overcoming Nature it is overcome. The very 
things which appeared to minister to its growth 
and beauty now turn against it and make it 
decay and die. The sun which warmed it, 
withers it ; the air and rain which nourished it, 
rot it. It is the very forces which we associ- 
ate with life which, when their true nature 



DEGExVERATION. 115 

appears, are discovered to be really the minis- 
ters of death. 

This lav/, which is true for the whole plant- 
world, is also valid for the animal and for man. 
Air is not life, but corruption — so literally cor- 
ruption that the only way to keep out corrup- 
tion, when life has ebbed, is to keep out air. 
Life is merely a temporary suspension of these 
destructive powers ; and this is truly one of the 
most accurate definitions of life we have yet 
received — ''the sum total of the functions 
which resist death." 

Spiritual life, in like manner, is the sum 
total of the functions which resist sin. The 
soul's atmosphere is the daily trial, circum- 
stance, and temptation of the world. And as 
it is life alone which gives the plant power to 
utilize the elements, and as, without it, they 
utilize it, so it is the spiritual life alone which 
gives the soul power to utilize temptation and 
trial; and without it they destroy the soul. 
How shall w^e escape if we refuse to exercise 
these functions — in other words, if we neglect? 

This destroying process, observe, goes on 
quite independently of God's judgment on sin. 
God's judgment on sin is another and a more 
awful fact of which this may be a part. But it 
is a distinct fact by itself, which we can hold 
and examine separately, that on purely natural 
principles the soul that is left to itself un- 
watched, uncultivated, unredeemed, must fall 
awa)^' into death by its own nature. The soul 
that sinneth '*it shall die." It shall die, not 
necessarily because God passes sentence of 



116 DEGENERATION. 

death upon it, but because it cannot help 
dying. It has neglected ''the functions which 
resist death," and has always been dying. 
The punishment is in its very nature, and the 
sentence is being gradually carried out all 
along the path of life by ordinary processes 
which enforce the verdict with the appalling 
faithfulness of law. 

There is an affectation that religious truths 
lie beyond the sphere of the comprehension 
which serves men in ordinary things. This 
question at least must be an exception. It 
lies as near the natural as the spiritual. If it 
makes no impression on a man to know that 
God will visit his iniquities upon him, he can- 
not blind himself to the fact that Nature will. 
Do we not all know what it is to be punished 
by Nature for disobeying her? We have looked 
round the wards of a hospital, a prison, or a 
madhouse, and seen there Nature at work 
squaring her accounts with sin. And we knew 
as we looked that if no Judge sat on the throne 
of heaven at all there was a Judgment there, 
where an inexorable Nature was crying aloud 
for justice, and carrying out her heavy sen- 
tences for violated laws. 

When God gave Nature the law into her 
own hands in this way. He seems to have given 
her two rules upon which her sentences were 
to be based. The one is formally enunciated 
in this sentence, ** Whatsoever a man soweth 
that shall he also reap." The other is infor- 
mally expressed in this, *'If we neglect how 
shall we escape?" 



DEGENERATION. 117 

The first is the positive law, and deals with 
sins of commission. The other, which we are 
now discussing, is the negative, and deals with 
sins of omission. It does not say anythmo^ 
about sowing, but about not sowing. It takes 
up the case of souls which are lying fallow. It 
does not say, if we sow corruption we shall 
reap corruption. Perhaps we would not be so 
unwise, so regardless of ourselves, of public 
opinion, as to sow corruption. It does not say, 
if we sow tares we shall reap tares. We might 
never do an3^thing so foolish as sow tares. But 
if we sow nothing, it says, we shall reap noth- 
ing. If we put nothing into the field, we shall 
take nothing out. If we neglect to cultivate 
in summer, how shall we escape starving in 
winter? 

Now the Bibje raises this question, but does 
not answer it — because it is too obvious to need 
answering. How^ shall w^e escape if we 
neglect? The answer is, we cannot. In the 
nature of things we cannot. We cannot escape 
any more than a man can escape drowning 
who falls into the sea and has neglected to learn 
to sw^im. In the nature of things he cannot 
escape — nor can he escape who has neglected 
the great salvation. 

Now why should such fatal consequences 
follow a simple process like neglect? The pop- 
ular impression is that a man, to be what is 
called lost, must be an open and notorious 
sinner. He must be one who has abandoned 
all that is good and pure in life, and sown to 
the flesh with all his might and main. But 



118 DEGENERATION. 

this principle goes further. It says simply, ** If 
we neglect." Any one may see the reason 
why a notoriously wicked person should not 
escape ; but why should not all the rest of us 
escape? What is to hinder people who are not 
notoriously wicked escaping — people who never 
sowed anything in particular? Why is it such 
a sin to sow nothing in particular? 

There must be some hidden and vital rela- 
tion between these three words, Salvation, 
Neglect, and Escape— some reasonable, essen- 
tial, and indissoluable connection. Why are 
these words so linked together as to weight this 
clause with all the authority and solemnity of 
a sentence of death? 

The explanation has partly been given 
already. It lies still further, however, in the 
meaning of the word Salvatiorw And this, of 
course, is not at all Salvation in the ordinary 
sense of forgiveness of sin. This is one great 
meaning of Salvation, the first and the great- 
est. But this is spoken to people who are sup- 
posed to have had this. It is the broader word, 
therefore, and includes not only forgiveness of 
sin but salvation or deliverance from the down- 
ward bias of the soul. It takes in that whole 
process of rescue from the power of sin and 
selfishness that should be going on from day 
to day in every human life. We have seen that 
there is a natural principle in man lowering 
him, deadening him, pulling him down by 
inches to the mere animal plane, blinding rea- 
son, searing conscience, paralyzing will. This 
is the active destroying pnnciple, or Sin. 



DEGENERATION. 119 

Now to counteract this, God has discovered to 
us another principle which will stop this drift- 
ing process in the soul, steer it round, and 
make it drift the other way. This is the 
active saving principle, or Salvation. If a man 
find the first of these powers furiously at work 
within him, dragging his whole life downward 
to destruction, there is only one way to escape 
his fate — to take resolute hold of the upward 
power, and be borne by it to the opposite goal. 
And as this second power is the only one in 
the universe which has the slightest real effect 
upon the first, how shall a man escape if he 
neglect it? To neglect it is to cut off the only 
possible chance of escape. In declining this he 
is simply abandoning himself with his eyes 
open to that other and terrible energy which is 
already there, and which, in the natural course 
of things, is bearing him every moment further 
and further from escape. 

From the very nature of Salvation, therefore, 
it is plain that the only thing necessary to 
make it of no effect is neglect. Hence the 
Bible could not fail to lay strong emphasis on 
a word so vital. It was not necessary for it 
to say, how shall we escape if we trample upon 
the great salvation, or doubt, or despise, or 
reject it. A man who has been poisoned only 
need neglect the antidote and he will die. It 
makes no difference whether he dashes it on 
the ground, or pours it out of che window, or 
sets it down by his bedside, and stares at it all 
the time he is dying. He will die just the 
same, whether he destroys it in a passion, or 



120 DEGENERATION. 

coolly refuses to have anything to do with it. 
And as a matter of fact probably most deaths, 
spiritually, are gradual dissolutions of the last 
class rather than rash suicides of the first. 

This, then, is the effect of neglecting salva- 
tion from the side of salvation itself; and the 
conclusion is that from the very nature of sal- 
vation escape is out of the question. Salvation 
is a definite process. If a man refuse to sub- 
mit himself to that process, clearly he cannot 
have the benefits of it. As many as received 
Him to them gave He power to become the 
sons of God. He does not avail himself of this 
power. It may be mere carelessness or apathy. 
Nevertheless the neglect is fatal. He cannot 
escape because he will not. 

Turn now to another aspect of the case — to 
the effect upon the soul itself Neglect does 
more for the soul than make it miss salvation. 
It despoils it of its capacity for salvation. 
Degeneration in the spiritual sphere involves 
primarily the impairing of the faculties of sal- 
vation and ultimately the loss of them. It 
really means that the very soul itself becomes 
piecemeal destroyed until the very capacity for 
God and righteousness is gone. 

The soul, in its highest sense, is a vast 
capacity for God. It is like a curious chamber 
added on to being, and somehow involving 
being, a chamber with elastic and contractile 
walls, which can be expanded, with God as its 
guest, inimitably, but which without God 
shrinks and shrivels until every vestige of the 
Divine is gone, and God's image is left with- 



DEGENERATION. 121 

out God's Spirit. One cannot call what it left 
a soul ; it is a shrunken, useless organ, a capac- 
ity sentenced to death i3y disuse, which droops 
as a withered hand by the side, and cumbers 
nature like a rotted branch. Nature has her 
revenge upon neglect as well as upon extrav- 
agance. Misuse, with her, is as mortal a sin as 
abuse. 

There are certain burrowing animals — the 
mole for instance — which have taken to spend- 
ing their lives beneath the surface of the 
ground. And Nature has taken her revenge 
upon them in a thoroughly natural way — she 
has closed up their eyes. If they mean to live 
in darkness, she argues, eyes are obviously a 
superfluous function. By neglecting them 
these animals made it clear they do not want 
them. And as one of Nature's fixed principles 
is that nothing shall exist in vain, the eyes are 
presently taken away, or reduced to a rudi- 
mentary state. There are fishes also which 
have had to pay the same terrible forfeit for 
having made their abode in dark caverns 
where eyes can never be required. And in 
exactly the same way the spiritual eye must die 
and lose its power by purely natural law if the 
soul choose to walk in darkness rather than in 
light. 

This is the meaning of the favorite paradox 
of Christ, *'From him that hath not shall be 
taken away even that which he hath;" *'take 
therefore the talent from him. " The religious 
faculty is a talent, the most splendid and sacred 
talent we possess. Yet it is subject to the 



122 DEGENERATION. 

natural conditions and laws. If any man take 
his talent and hide it in a napkin, although it 
is doing him neither harm nor good apparently, 
God will not allow him to have it. Although 
it is lying there rolled up in the darkness, not 
conspicuously affecting any one, still God will 
not allow him to keep it. He will not allow 
him to keep it any more than Nature would 
allow the fish to keep their eyes. Therefore, 
He says, **take the talent from him.*' And 
Nature does it. 

This man's crime was simply neglect — ''thou 
wicked and slothful servant. ' ' It was a wasted 
life — a life which failed in the holy steward- 
ship of itself. Such a life is a peril to all who 
cross its path. Degeneration compasses 
Degeneration. It is only a character which 
is itself developing that can aid the Evolution 
of the world and so fulfill the end of life. For 
this high usury each of our lives, however 
small may seem our capital, was given us by 
God. And it is just the men whose capital 
seems small who need to choose the best invest- 
ments. It is significant that it was the man 
who had only one talent who was guilty of 
neglecting it. Men with ten talents, men of 
large gifts and burning energies, either direct 
their powers nobly and usefully, or misdirect 
them irretrievably. It is those who belong to 
the rank and file of life who need this warning 
most. Others have an abundant store and sow 
to the spirit or the flesh with a lavish hand. 
But we, with our small gift, what boots our 
sowing? Our temptation as ordinary men is 



DEGENERATION. 123 

to neglect to sow at all. The interest on our 
talent would be so small that we excuse our- 
selves with the reflection that it is not worth 
while. 

It is no objection to all this to say that we 
are unconscious of this neglect or misdirection 
of our powers. That is the darkest feature in 
the case. If there were uneasiness there might 
be hope. If there were, somewhere about our 
soul, a something which was not gone to sleep 
like all the rest; if there were a contending 
force anywhere ; if we would let even that work 
instead of neglecting it, it would gain strength 
from hour to hour, and waken up one at a time 
each torpid and dishonored faculty till our 
whole nature becomes alive with strivings 
against self, and every avenue was open wide 
for God. But the apathy, the numbness of the 
soul, what can be said of such a symptom but 
that it means the creeping on of death? There 
are accidents in which the victims feel no pain. 
They are well and strong they think. But they 
are dying. And if you ask the surgeon by 
their side what makes him give this verdict, 
he will say it is this numbness over the frame 
which tells how some of the parts have lost 
already the very capacity for life. 

Nor is it the least tragic accompaniment of 
this process that its effect may even be con- 
cealed from others. The soul undergoing 
Degeneration, surely by some arrangement 
with Temptation planned in the uttermost 
hell, possesses the power of absolute secrec3^ 
When all within is festering decay and rotten- 



124 DEGENERATION. 

ness, a Judas, without anomaly, may kiss his 
Lord. This invisible consumption, like its fell 
analogue in the natural world, may even keep 
its victim beautiful while slowly slaying it. 
When one examines the little Crustacea which 
have inhabited for centuries the lakes of the 
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, one is at first 
astonished to find these animals apparently 
endowed with perfect eyes. The pallor of the 
head is broken by two black pigment specks, 
conspicuous indeed as the only bits of color 
on the whole blanched body ; and these, even 
to the casual observer, certainly represent well- 
defined organs of vision. But what do they 
with eyes in these Stygian waters? There 
reigns an everlasting night. Is the law for 
once at fault? A swift incision with the scalpel, 
a glance with a lens, and their secret is 
betrayed. The eyes are a mockery. Extern- 
ally they are organs of vision — the front of the 
eye is perfect; behind, there is nothing but a 
mass of ruins. The optic nerve is a shrunken, 
atrophied and insensate thread. These ani- 
mals have organs of vision, and yet they have 
no vision. They have eyes, but they see not. 
Exactly what Christ said of men : They had 
eyes, but no vision. And the reason is the 
same. It is the simplest problem of natural 
history. The Crustacea of the Mammoth Cave 
have chosen to abide in darkness. Therefore 
they have become fitted for it. By refusing to 
see they have waved the right to see. And 
Nature has grimly humored them. Nature 
had to do it by her very constitution. It 



DEGExNfERATION. 125 

is her defence against waste that decay of 
faculty should immediately follow disuse of 
function. He that hath ears to hear, he whose 
ears have not degenerated, let him hear. 

Men tell us sometimes there is no such thing 
as an atheist. There must be. There are 
some men to whom it is true that there is no 
God. They cannot see God because they have 
no eye. They have only an abortive organ, 
atrophied by neglect. 

All this, it is commonplace again to insist, 
is not the effect of neglect when we die, but 
v/hile we live. The process is in full career 
and operation now. It is useless projecting 
consequences into the future when the effect 
may be measured now. We are always prac- 
ticing these little deceptions upon ourselves, 
postponing the consequences of our misdeeds 
as if they w^ere to culminate some other day 
about the time of death. It makes us sin with 
a lighter hand to run an account with retribu- 
tion, as it were, and delay the reckoning time 
with God. But every day is a reckoning day. 
Every soul is a Book of Judgment, and Nature, 
as a recording angel, marks their every sin. 
As all will be judged by the great Judge some 
day, all are judged by Nature now. The sin 
of yesterday, as part of its penalty, has the sin 
of to-day. All follow us in silent retribution 
on our past, and go with us to the grave. We 
cannot cheat Nature. No sleight-of -heart can 
rob religion of a present, the immortal nature 
of a now. The poet sings — 



126 DEGENERATION. 

"I look behind to find my past, 
And lo, it had gone before." 

But no, not all. The unforgiven sins are not 
away in keeping somewhere to be let loose 
upon us when we die; they are here within us, 
now. To-day brings the resurrection of their 
past, to-morrow of to-day. And the powers of 
sin, to the exact strength that we have devel- 
oped them, nearing their dreadful culmination 
with every breath we draw, are here within us, 
now. The souls of some men are already 
honeycombed through and through with the 
eternal consequences of neglect, so that taking 
the natural and rational view of their case just 
now, itissimply inconceivable that there is any 
escape just now. What a fearful thing it is to 
fall into the hands of the living God! A fear- 
ful thing even if, as the philosopher tells us, 
*'the hands of the Living God are the Laws of 
Nature." 

Whatever hopes of a '* heaven*' a neglected 
soul may have, can be shown to be an ignorant 
and delusive dream. How is the soul to escape 
to heaven if it has neglected for a lifetime the 
means of escape from the world and self? And 
where is the capacity for heaven to come from 
if it be not developed on earth? Where, in- 
deed, is even the smallest spiritual apprecia- 
tion of God and heaven to come from when so 
little of spirituality has ever been known or 
manifested here? If every God ward aspiration 
of the soul has been allowed to become extinct, 
and every inlet that was open to heaven to be 
choked, and every talent for religious love and 



DEGENERATION. 127 

trust to have been persistently neglected and 
ignored, where are the faculties to come from 
that would even find the faintest relish in such 
things as God and heaven gives? 

These three words, Salvation, Escape, and 
Neglect, then, are not casually, but organi- 
cally and necessarily connected. Their doc- 
trine is scientific, not arbitrary. Escape means 
nothing more than the gradual emergence of 
the higher being from the lower, and nothing 
less. It means the gradual putting off of all 
that cannot enter the higher state or heaven, 
arid simultaneously the putting on of Christ. 
It involves the slow completing of the soul and 
the development of the capacity for God. . 

Should any one object that from this scien- 
tific standpoint the opposite of salvation is 
annihilation, the answer is at hand. From this 
standpoint there is no such word. 

If, then, escape it to be open to us, it is not 
to come to us somehow, vaguely. We are not 
to hope for anything startling or -mysterious. 
It is a definite opening along certain lines 
which are definitely marked by God, which be- 
gin at the Cross of Christ, and lead direct to 
Him. Each man in the silence of his own 
soul must work out this salvation for himself 
with fear and trembling — with fear, realizing 
the momentous issues of his task ; with trem- 
bling, lest before the tardy work be done, the 
voice of Death should summon him to stop. 

What these lines are may, in closing, be 
indicated in a word. The true problem of the 
spiritual life may be said to be, do the opposite 



128, DEGENERATION. 

o£ Neglect. Whatever this is, do it and you 
shall escape. It will just mean that you are so 
to cultivate the soul that all its powers will 
open out to God, and in beholding God be 
drawn away from sin. The idea really is to 
develop among the ruins of the old a new 
**creature" — a new creature which, while the 
old is suffering Degeneration from Neglect, is 
gradually to unfold, to escape away and de- 
velop on spiritual lines to spiritual beauty and 
strength. And as our conception of spiritual 
being must be taken simply from natural 
being, our ideas of the lines along which the 
new religious nature is to run must be bor- 
rowed from the known lines of the old. 

There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in 
the religious nature. Neglect this, leave it 
undeveloped, and you never miss it. You sim- 
ply see nothing. But develop it and you see 
God. And the line along which to develop it 
is known to us. Become pure in heart. The 
pure in heart shall see God. Here, then, is 
one opening for soul-culture — the avenue 
through purity of heart to the spiritual seeing 
of God. 

Then there is a Sense of Sound. Neglect 
this, leave it undeveloped, and you never miss 
it You simply hear nothing. Develop it, 
and you hear God. And the line along which 
to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. 
Become one of Christ's flock. **The sheep hear 
His voice, and He calleth them by name.'* 
Here, then, is another opportunity for the cul- 



DEGENERATION. 129 

ture of the soul — a gateway through the Shep- 
herd's fold to hear the Shepherd's voice. 

And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired 
— such a sense as the woman had who touched 
the hem of Christ's garment, that wonderful 
electric touch called faith, which moves the 
very heart of God. 

And there is Sense of Taste — a spiritual 
hunger after God ; a something within which 
tastes and sees that He is good. And there is 
the Talent for Inspiration. Neglect that, and 
all the scenery of the spiritual world is flat and 
frozen. But cultivate it, and it penetrates the 
whole soul with sacred fire, and illuminates 
creation with God. And last of all there is the 
great capacity for Love, even for the love of 
God — the expanding capacity for feeling more 
and more its height and depth, its length and 
breadth. Till that is felt no man can really 
understand that word, "so great salvation,*' 
for what is its measure but that other **so" of 
Christ — God so loved the world that He gave 
His only Begotten Son? Verily, how shall we 
escape if we neglect that? * 

* For the scientific basis of this spiritual law the following 
works may be consulted:— 

"The Origin of Species." By Charles Darwin, F.R.S. Lon- 
don: John Murray. 1872. 

"Degeneration.'^' By E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S. London: 
Macmillan. 1880. 

"Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere und das Princip des Func- 
tions- Wechsels." Dr. A. Dorhn. Leipzig: 1875. 

"Lessons from Nature." By St. George Mivart., F.R.S. Lon- 
don: John Murray. 1876. 

"The Natural Conditions of Existence as they Affect Animal 
Life." Karl Semper. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1881. 



Natural Law 



GROWTH. 



131 



"Is not the evidence of Ease on the very front of all 
the greatest works in existence? Do they not say plainly 
to us, not 'there has been a great effort here,' but 'there 
has been a great power here'? It is not the weariness 
of mortality but the strength of divinity, which we have 
to recognize in all mighty things, and that is just what 
we now never recognize, but think that we are to do 
great things by help of iron bars and perspiration ; alas ! 
we shall do nothing that way, but lose some pounds of 
our own weight. " — Ruskin. 



182 



GROWTH. 

"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." — The 
Sermon on the Mount. 

"Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit." — 
Juvenal. 

What gives the peculiar point to this object- 
lesson from the lips of Jesus is, that He not 
only made the illustration, but made the lilies. 
It is like an inventor describing his own ma- 
chine. He made the lilies and He made me — 
both on the same broad principle. Both 
together, man and flower, He planted deep in 
the Providence of God ; but as men are dull at 
studying themselves He points to this com- 
panion-phenomenon to teach us how to live a 
free and natural life, a life w^hich God will un- 
fold for us, without our anxiety, as He unfolds 
the flower. For Christ's words are not a gen- 
eral appeal to consider nature. Men are not 
to consider the lilies simply to admire their 
beauty, to dream over the delicate strength and 
grace of stem and leaf. The point they were 
to consider was how they grew — how without 
anxiety or care the flower woke into loveliness, 
how without weaving these leaves were woven, 
how without toiling these complex tissues spun 
themselves, and how without any effort or fric- 
tion the whole slowly came ready-made from 
the loom of God in its more than Solomon-like 

133 



134 GROWTH. 

glory. * ' So, ' ' He says, making the application 
beyond dispute, *'you care-worn, anxious men 
must grow. You, too, need take no thought 
for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall 
drink or what ye shall put on. For if God so 
clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, 
and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He 
not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
faith?" 

This nature-lesson was a great novelty in its 
day; but all men now who have even a '* little 
faith" have learned this Christian secret of a 
composed life. Apart even from the parable 
of the lily, the failures of the past have taught 
most of us the folly of disquieting ourselves in 
vain, and we have given up the idea that by 
taking thought we can add a cubit to our stat- 
ure. 

But no sooner has our life settled down to this 
calm trust in God than a new and greater anxi- 
ety begins. This time it is not for the body 
we are in travail, but for the soul. For the 
temporal life we have considered the lilies, but 
how is the spiritual life to grow? How are we 
to become better men? How are we to grow 
in grace? By what thought shall we add the 
cubits to the spiritual stature and reach the 
fulness of the Perfect Man? And because we 
know ill how to do this, the old anxiety comes 
back again and our inner life is once more an 
agony of conflict and remorse. After all we 
have but transferred our anxious thoughts 
from the body to the soul. Our efforts after 
Christian growth seem only a succession of fail- 



GROWTH. 135 

ures, and instead of rising into the beauty of 
holiness our life is a daily heartbreak and 
humiliation. 

Now the reason of this is very plain. We 
have forgotten the parable of the lily. Vio- 
lent efforts to grow are right in earnestness, 
but wholly wrong in principle. There is but 
one principle of growth both for the natural 
and spiritual, for animal and plant,^ for body 
and soul. For all growth is an organic thing. 
And the principle of growing in grace is 
once more this, ''Consider the lilies how they 
grow. ' * 

In seeking to extend the analogy from the 
body to the soul there are two things about the 
lilies' growth, two characteristics of all growth, 
on which one must fix attention. These are, — 

First, Spontaneousness. 

Second, Mysteriousness. 

I. vSpontaneousness. There are three lines 
along which one may seek for evidence of the 
spontaneousness of growth. The first is Sci- 
ence. And the argument here could not be 
summed up better than in the words of Jesus. 
The lilies grow, he says, of themselves; they 
toil not, neither do they spin. They grow, 
that is, automatically, spontaneously, without 
trying, without fretting, without thinking. 
Applied in any direction, to plant, to animal, 
to the body, or to the soul, this law holds. A 
boy grows, for example, without trying. One 
or two simple conditions are fulfilled, and the 
growth goes on. He thinks probably as little 
about the condition as about the result: he ful- 



136 GROWTH. 

fils the conditions by habit, the result follows 
by nature. Both processes go steadily on from 
year to year apart from himself and all but in 
spite of himself. One would never think of 
telling a boy to grow. A doctor has no pre- 
scription for growth. He can tell me how 
growth is stunted or impaired, but the process 
itself is recognized as beyond control — one of 
the few, and therefore very significant things 
which Nature keeps in her own hands. No 
physician of souls, in like manner, has any pre- 
scription for spiritual growth. It is the ques- 
tion he is most often asked and most often an- 
swers wrongly. He may prescribe more earn- 
estness, more prayer, more self-denial, or more 
Christian work. These are prescriptions for 
something, but not for growth. Not that they 
may not encourage growth ; but the soul grows 
as the lily grows, without trying, without fret- 
ting, without ever thinking. Manuals of devo- 
tion, with complicated rules for getting on in 
the Christian life, would do well sometimes to 
return to the simplicity of nature ; and earnest 
souls who are attempting sanctification by 
struggle instead of sanctification by faith, 
might be spared much humiliation by learning 
the botany of the Sermon on the Mount. 
There can indeed be no other principle of 
growth than this. It is a vital act. And to 
try to make a thing grow is as absurd as to 
help the tide to come in or the sun rise. 

Another argument for the spontaneousness 
of growth is universal experience. A boy not 
only grows without trying, but he cannot grow 



GROWTH. 137 

if he tries. No man by taking thought has 
ever added a cubit to his stature ; nor has any 
man by mere working at his soul ever ap- 
proached nearer to the stature of the Lord 
Jesus. The stature of the Lord Jesus was not 
itself reached by work, and he who thinks to 
approach its mystical height by anxious effort 
is really receding from it. Christ's life un- 
folded itself from a divine germ, planted cen- 
trally in His nature, which grew as naturally 
as a flower from a bud. This flower may be 
imitated; but one can always tell an artificial 
flower. The human form may be copied in 
wax, yet somehow one never fails to detect the 
difference. And this precisely is the differ- 
ence between a native growth of Christian prin- 
ciple and the moral copy of it. The one is nat- 
ural, the other mechanical. The one is a 
growth, the other an accretion. Now, this, 
according to modern biology, is the fundamen- 
tal distinction between the living and the not 
living, between an organism and a crystal. 
The living organism grows, the dead crystal 
increases. The first grows vitally from within, 
the last adds new particles from the outside. 
The whole difference, betw^een the Christian 
and the moralist lies here. The Christian 
works from the centre, the moralist from the 
circumference. The one is an organism, in 
the centre of which is planted by the living 
God a living germ. The other is a crystal, very 
beautiful it m.ay be; but only a crystal — ^it 
wants the vital principle of growth. 

And one sees here, also, what is sometimes 

10 Natural Law 



^138 GROWTH. 

very diflficult to see, why salvation in the first 
instance is never connected directly with mor- 
ality. The reason is not that salvation does 
not demand morality, but that it demands so 
much of it that the moralist can never reach 
up to it. The end of Salvation is perfection, 
the Christlike mind, character and life. Mor- 
ality is on the way to this perfection ; it may 
go a considerable distance towards it, but it 
can never reach it. Only Life can do that. It 
requires something with enormous power of 
movement, of growth of overcoming obstacles, 
to attain the perfect. Therefore, the man who 
has within himself«this great formative agent. 
Life, is nearer the end than the man who has 
morality alone. The latter can never reach 
perfection; the former must. For the Life 
must develop out according to its type; and 
being a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold 
into a Christ. Morality, at the utmost, only 
develops the character in one or two directions. 
It may perfect a single virtue here and there, 
but it cannot perfect all. And especially it 
fails always to give that rounded harmony of 
parts, that perfect tune to the whole orchestra, 
which is the mark characteristic of life. Per- 
fect life is not merely the possession of perfect 
functions, but of perfect functions perfectly 
adjusted to each other and all conspiring to a 
single result, the perfect working of the whole 
organism. It is not said that the character 
will develop in all its fulness in this life. That 
were a time too short for an Evolution so mag- 
nificent. In this world only the cornless ear is 



GROWTH. 139 

seen ; sometimes only the small yet still pro- 
phetic blade. The sneer at the godly man for 
his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a 
small thing. At first it grows very near the 
earth. It is often soiled and crushed and 
downtrodden. But it is a living thing. That 
great dead stone beside it is more imposing; 
only it will never be anything else than a 
stone. But this small blade — it doth not yet 
appear what it shall be. 

Seeing now that Growth can only be synony- 
mous with a living automatic process, it is all 
but superfluous to seek a third line of argu- 
ment from Scripture. Growth there is always 
described in the language of physiology. The 
regenerate soul is a new creature. The Chris- 
tian is a new man in Christ Jesus. He adds the 
cubits to his stature just as the old man does. 
He is rooted and built up in Christ ; he abides 
in the vine, and so abiding, not toiling or spin- 
ning, brings forth fruit. The Christian, in 
short, like the poet, is born, not made ; and the 
fruits of his character are not manufactured 
things, but living things, things which have 
grown from the secret germ, the fruits of the 
living Spirit. They are not the products of this 
climate, but exotics from a sunnier land. 

n. But, secondly, besides the Spontaneous- 
ness there is this other great characteristic of 
Growth — Mysteriousness. Upon this quality 
depends the fact, probably, that so few men 
ever fathom its real charactver. We are most 
unspiritual always in dealing with the simplest 
spiritual things. A lily grows mysteriously, 



140 GROWTH. 

pushing up its solid weight of stem and leaf in 
the teeth of gravity. Shaped into beauty by 
secret and invisible fingers, the flower devel- 
ops we know not how. But we do not wonder 
at it. Every day the thing is done; it is Na- 
ture, it is God. We are spiritual enough at 
least to understand that. But when the soul 
rises slowly above the world, pushing up its 
delicate virtues in the teeth of sin, shaping 
itself mysteriously into the image of Christ, we 
deny that the power is not of man. A strong 
will, we say, a high ideal, the reward of virtue, 
Christian influence, — these will account for it. 
Spiritual character is merely the product of 
anxious work, self-command, and self-denial. 
We allow, that is to say, a miracle to the lily, 
but none to the man. The lily may grow; the 
man must fret and toil and spin. 

Now, grant for a moment that by hard work 
and self-restraint a man may attain to a very 
high character. It is not denied that this can 
be done. But what is denied is that this is 
growth, and that this process is Christianity. 
The fact that you can account for it proves 
that it is not growth. For growth is mysteri- 
ous; the peculiarity of it is that you cannot ac- 
count for it. Mysteriousness, as Mozley has 
well observed, is ''the test of spiritual birth." 
And this was Christ's test. ''The wind blow- 
eth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh 
or whither it goeth, so is every one that is 
born of the Spirit." The test of spirituahty 
is that you cannot tell whence it cometh or 



GROWTH. 141 

whither it goeth. If you can tell, if you can 
account for it on philosophical principles, on 
the doctrine of influence, on strength of will, 
on a favorable environment, it is not growth. 
It may be so far a success, it may be a per- 
fectly honest, even remarkable, and praise- 
worthy imitation, but it is not the real thing. 
The fruits are wax, the flowers artificial — you 
can tell whence it cometh and whither it 
goeth. 

The conclusion is, then, that the Christian is 
a unique phenomenon. You cannot account 
for him. And if you could he would not be a 
Christian. Mozley has drawn the two charac- 
ters for us in graphic words: ''Take an ordi- 
nary man of the world — what he thinks and 
what he does, his whole standard of duty is 
taken from the society in which he lives. It is 
a borrowed standard : he is as good as other 
people are; he does, in the way of duty, what 
is generally considered proper and becoming 
among those with whom his lot is thrown. He 
reflects established opinion on such points. He 
follows its lead. His aims and objects in life 
again are taken fro^i the world around him, 
and from its dictation. What it considers hon- 
orable, worth having, advantageous and good, 
he thinks so, too, and pursues it. His motives 
all come from a visible quarter. It would be 
absurd to say that there is any mystery in such 
a character as this, because it is formed from 
a known external influence — the influence of 
social opinion and the voice of the world. 
'Whence such a character cometh' we see; we 



142 GROWTH. 

venture to say that the source and origin of it 
is open and palpable, and we know it just as 
we know the physical causes of many common 
facts. ' ' 

Then there is the other. '* There is a certain 
character and disposition of mind of which it is 
true to say that 'thou canst not tell whence it 
Cometh or whither it goeth. * . . . There are 
those who stand out from among the crowd, 
which reflects merely the atmosphere of feeling 
and standard of society around it, with an im- 
press upon them which bespeaks a heavenly 
birth. . . . Now, when we see one of those 
characters, it is a question which we ask our- 
selves, How has the person become possessed 
of it? Has he caught it from society around 
him? That cannot be, because it is wholly 
different from that of the world around him. 
Has he caught it from the inoculation of 
crowds and masses, as the mere religious 
zealot catches his character? That cannot be 
either, for the type is altogether different from 
that which masses of men, under enthusiastic 
impulses, exhibit. There is nothing gregari- 
ous in this character; it is^the individual's own; 
it is not borrowed, it is not a reflection of any 
fashion or tone of the world outside ; it rises up 
from some fount within, and it is a creation 
of which the text says, We know not whence it 
Cometh.'"** 

Now we have all met these two characters — • 
the one eminently respectable, upright, virtu- 
ous, a trifle cold perhaps, and generally, when 

* University Sermons, pp. 234-241. 



GROWTH. 143 

critically examined, revealing somehow the 
mark of the tool; the other with God's breath 
still upon it, an inspiration ; not more virtuous, 
but differently virtuous; not more humble, but 
different, wearing the meek and quiet spirit 
artlessly as to the manner born. The other- 
worldliness of such a character is the thing that 
strikes you ; you are not prepared for what it 
will do or say or become next, for it moves 
from a far-off centre, and in spite of its trans- 
parency and sweetness, that presence fills you 
always with awe. A man never feels the dis^ 
cord of his own life, never hears the javr^the 
machinery by which he tries to manufacture 
his own good points, till he has stood in the 
stillness of such a presence. Then he discerns 
the difference between growth and work. He 
has considered the lilies, how they grow. 

We have now seen that spiritual growth is a 
process maintained and secured by a spontane- 
ous and mysterious inward principle. It is a 
spontaneous principle even in its origin, for it 
bloweth where it listeth; mysterious in its 
operation, for we can never tell whence it com- 
eth ; obscure in its destination, for we cannot 
tell whence it goeth. The whole process, there- 
fore, transcends us; we do not work, we are 
taken in hand— ** it is God which worketh in 
us, both to will and to do of His good pleas- 
ure. " We do not plan — we are "created in 
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath 
before ordained that we should walk in them. ' * 

There may be an obvious objection to all 
this. It takes away all conflict from the Chris- 



144 GROWTH. 

tian life? It makes man, does it not, mere 
clay in the hands of the potter? It crushes the 
old character to make a new one and destroys 
man's responsibility for his own soul? 

Now we are not concerned here in once more 
striking the time-honored '* balance between 
faith and works." We are considering how 
lilies grow, and in a specific connection, namely, 
to discover the attitude of mind which the 
Christian should preserve regarding his spir- 
itual growth. That attitude, primarily, is to 
be free from care. We are not lodging a plea 
for inactivity of the spiritual energies, but for 
the tranquillity of the spiritual mind. Christ*s 
protest is not against work, but against anx- 
ious thought; and rather, therefore, than com- 
plement the lesson by showing the other side, 
we take the risk of still further extending the 
plea in the original direction. 

What is the relation, to recur again to anal- 
ogy, between growth and work in a boy? Con- 
sciously, there is no relation at all. The boy 
never thinks of connecting his work with his 
growth. Work, in fact, is one thing, and 
growth another, and it is so in the spiritual 
life. If it be asked, therefore. Is the Christian 
wrong in these ceaseless and agonizing efforts 
after growth? the answer is, Yes, he is quite 
wrong, or, at least, he is quite mistaken. 
J/Vhen a boy takes a meal or denies himself in- 
digestible things, he does not say, *'A11 this 
will minister to my growth'' ; or when he runs 
a race he does not say, ''This will help the 
next cubit of my stature." It may or it may 



GROWTH. 115 

not be true that these things will help his stat- 
ure, but, if he thinks of this, his idea of growtk 
is morbid. And this is the point we are deal- 
ing with. His anxiety here is altogether irrei« 
evant and superfluous. Nature is far more 
bountiful than we think. When she gives us 
energy she asks none of it back to expend oii 
our own growth. She will attend to that 
*'Give your work,*' she says, *'and your anx- 
iety to others ; trust me to add the cubits to 
your stature.'* If God is adding to our spirit- 
ual stature, unfolding the new nature within 
us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the 
petals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to 
let the Creative Hand alone. **It is God which 
giveth the increase.*' Yet we never know 
how little we have learned of the fundamental 
principle of Christianity till we discover how 
much we are all bent on supplementing God*s 
free grace. If God is spending work upon a 
Christian, let him be still and know that it is 
God. And if he wants work, he will find it 
there — in the being still. 

Not that there is no work for him who would 
grow, to do. There is work, and severe work 
— work so great that the worker deserves to 
have himself relieved of all that is superfluous 
during his task. If the amount of energy lost 
in trying to grow were spent in fulfilling 
rather the conditions of growth, we should 
have many more cubits to show for our stature. 
It is with these conditions that the personal 
work of the Christian is chiefly concerned. 
Observe for a moment what they are, and 

10 



146 GROWTH. 

their exact relation. For its growth the plant 
needs heat, light, air, and moisture. A man, 
therefore, must go in search of these, or their 
spiritual equivalents, and this is his work? By 
no means. The Christian's work is not yet. 
Does the plant go in search of its conditions? 
Nay, the conditions come to the plant. It no 
more manufactures the heat, light, air, and 
moisture, than it manufactures its own stem. 
It finds them all around it in Nature. It sim- 
ply stands still with its leaves spread out in 
unconscious prayer, and Nature lavishes upon 
it these and all other bounties, bathing it in 
sunshine, pouring the nourishing air over and 
over it, reviving it graciously with its nightly 
dew. Grace, too, is as free as the air. The 
Lord God is a Sun. He is as the Dew to 
Israel. A man has no more to manufacture 
these than he has to manufacture his own soul. 
He stands surrounded by them, bathed in 
them, beset behind and before by them. He 
lives and moves and has his being in them, 
fiow, then, shall he go in search of them? Do 
not they rather go in search of him? Does he 
not feel how they press themselves upon him? 
Does he not know how unweariedly they appeal 
to him? Has he not heard how they are sor- 
rowful when he will not have them? His 
work, therefore is not yet. The voice still 
says, **Be still." 

The conditions of growth then, and the in- 
ward principle of growth being both supplied 
by Nature, the thing man has to do, the little 
junction left for him to complete, is to apply 



GROWTH. 147 

the one to the other. He manufactures noth- 
ing; he earns nothing; he need be anxious for 
nothing; his one duty is to be in these condi- 
tions, to abide in them, to allow grace to play 
over him, to be still therein and know that this 
is God. 

The conflict begins and prevails in all its life- 
long agony the moment a man forgets this. 
He struggles to grow himself insead of strug- 
gling to get back again into position. He 
makes the church into a workshop when God 
meant it to be a beautiful garden. And even 
in his closet, where only should reign silence 
— a silence as of the mountains whereon the 
lilies grow — is heard the roar and tumult of 
machinery. True, a man will often have to 
wrestle with his God — ^but not for growth. 
The Christian life is a composed life. The 
Gospel is Peace. Yet the most anxious people 
in the world are Christians^ — Christians who 
misunderstand the nature of growth. Life is 
a perpetual self-condemning because they are 
not growing. And the effect is not only the 
loss of tranquillity to the individual. The en- 
ergies which are meant to be spent on the work 
of Christ are consumed in the soul's own fever. 
So long as the Church's activities are spent on 
growing there is nothing to spare for the 
world. A soldier's time is not spent in earn- 
ing the money to buy his armor, in finding 
food and raiment, in seeking shelter. His 
king provides these things that he may be the 
more at liberty to fight his battles. So, for the 
soldier of the Cross all is provided. His Gov- 



14S GROWTH. 

ernment has planned to leave him free for the 
Kingdom's work. 

The problem of the Christian life finally is 
simplified to this — man has but to preserve the 
right attitude. To abide in Christ, to be in 
position, that is all. Much work is done on 
board a ship crossing the Atlantic. Yet none 
of it is spent on making the ship go. The 
sailor but harnesses his vessel to the wind. He 
puts his sail and rudder in position, and lo, the 
miracle is wrought. So everywhere God cre- 
ates, man utilizes. All the work of the world 
is merely a taking advantage of energies 
already there.* God gives the wind and the 
water, and the heat; man but puts himself in 
the way of the wind, fixes his water-wheel in 
the way of the river, puts his piston in the way 
of the steam ; and so, holding himself in posi- 
tion before God's Spirit, all the energies of 
Omnipotence course within his soul. He is 
like a tree planted by a river whose leaf is 
green and whose fruit fail not. Such is the 
deeper lesson to be learned from considering 
the lily. It is the voice of Nature echoing the 
whole evangel of Jesus, **Come unto Me, and 
I will give you rest. * ' 

* See Bushnell's "New Life," 



DEATH. 



149 



"What could be easier than to form a catena of the 
most philosophical defenders of Christianity, who have 
exhausted language in declaring the impotence of the 
unassisted intellect? Comte has not more explicitly 
enounced the incapacity of man to deal with the Absolute 
and the Infinite than the whole series of orthodox writ- 
ers. Trust your reason, we have been told, till we are 
tired of the phrase, and you will become Atheists or 
Agnostics. We take you at your word; we become 
Agnostics." Leslie Stephen. 



150 



DEATH. 

"To be carnally minded is Death." — Paul. 
"I do not wonder at what men sufEer, but I wonder 
often at what they lose. ' '— Jluskin. 

** Death,'* wrote Faber, *'is an unsurveyed 
land, an unarranged Science. " Poetry draws 
near Death only to hover over it for a moment 
and withdraw in terror. History knows it 
simply as a universal fact. Philosophy finds it 
among the mysteries of being, the one great 
mystery of being not. All contributions to 
this dread theme are marked by an essential 
vagueness, and every avenue of approach seems 
darkened by impenetrable shadow. 

But modern Biology has found it part of its 
work to push its way into this silent land, and 
at last the word is confronted with a scientific 
treatment of Death. Not that much is added 
to the old conception, or much taken from it. 
What it is, this certain Death with its uncer- 
tain issues, we know as little as before. But 
we can define more clearly and attach a nar- 
rower meaning to the momentous symbol. 

The interest of the investigation here lies in 
the fact that Death is one of the outstanding 
things in Nature which has an acknowledged 
spiritual equivalent. The prominence of the 
word in the vocabulary of Revelation cannot 
be exaggerated. Next to Life the most preg- 

151 



152 DEATH. 

nant symbol in religion is its antithesis, Death. 
And from the time that **If thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die" was heard in Paradise, 
this solemn word has been linked with human 
interests of eternal moment. 

Notwithstanding the unparalleled emphasis 
upon this term in the Christian system, there 
is none more feebly expressive to the ordinary 
mind. That mystery which surrounds the word 
in the natural world shrouds only too com- 
pletely its spiritual import. The reluctance 
which prevents men from investigating the 
secrets of the King of Terrors is for a certain 
length entitled to respect. But it has left 
theology with only the vaguest materials 
to construct a doctrine which, intelligently 
enforced, ought to appeal to all men with con- 
vincing power and lend the most effective argu- 
ment to Christianity. Whatever may have 
been its influence in the past, its threat is gone 
for the modern world. The word has grown 
weak. Ignorance has robbed the Grave of all 
its terror, and platitude despoilt Death of its 
sting. Death itself is ethically dead. Which 
of us, for example, enters fully into the mean- 
ing of words like these: '*She that liveth in 
pleasure is dead while she liveth"? Who 
allows adequate weight to the metaphor in the 
Pauline phrase, "To be carnally minded is 
Death;" or in this, *'The wages of sin is 
Death"? Or what theology has translated into 
the language of human life the terrific prac- 
tical import of *'Dead in trespasses and sins"? 
To seek to make these phrases once more real 



DEATH. 153 

and burning; to clothe time-worn formulae 
with living truth; to put the deepest ethical 
meaning into the gravest symbol of Nature, 
and fill up with its full consequence the dark- 
est threat of Revelation — these are the objects 
before us now. 

What, then, is Death? Is it possible to 
define it and embody its essential meaning in 
an intelligible proposition? 

The most recent and the most scientific 
attempt to investigate Death we owe to the 
biological studies of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In 
his search for the meaning of Life the word 
Death crosses his path, and he turns aside for 
a moment to define it. Of course what Death 
is depends upon what Life is. Mr. Herbert 
Spencer's definition of Life, it is well known, 
has been subjected to serious criticism. While 
it has shed much light on many of the phe- 
nomena of Life, it cannot be affirmed that it 
has taken its place in science as the final solu- 
tion of the fundamental problem of biology. 
No definition of Life, indeed, that has yet 
appeared can be said to be even approximately 
correct. Its mysterious quality evades us ; and 
we have to be content with outward character- 
istics and accompaniments, leaving the thing 
itself an unsolved riddle. At the same time 
Mr. Herbert Spencer's masterly elucidation of 
the chief phenomena of Life has placed phil- 
osophy and science under many obligations, 
and in the paragraphs which follow we shall 
have to incur a further debt on behalf of 
religion. 



154 DEATH. 

The meaning of Death depending, as has 
been said, on the meaning of Life, we must 
first set ourselves to grasp the leading charac- 
teristics which distinguish living things. To 
a physiologist the living organism is distin- 
guished from the not-living by the performance 
of certain functions. These functions are four 
in number — Assimilation, Waste, Reproduc- 
tion, and Growth. Nothing could be a more 
interesting task than to point out the co-rela- 
tives of these in the spiritual sphere, to show 
in what ways the discharge of these functions 
represent the true manifestations of spiritual 
life, and how the failure to perform them con- 
stitutes spiritual Death. But it will bring us 
more directly to the specific subject before us 
if we follow rather the newer biological lines 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer. According to his 
definition, Life is ''The definite combination 
of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous 
and successive, in correspondence with external 
co-existences and sequences,*'* or more shortly 
''The continuous adjustment of internal rela- 
tions to external relations,"! An example or 
two will render these important statements at 
once intelligible. 

The essential characteristic of a living 
organism, according to these definitions, is 
that it is in vital connection with its general 
surroundings. A human being, for instance, 
is in direct contact with the earth and air, with 
all surrounding things, with the warmth of the 
sun, with the music of birds, with the count- 

* "Principles of Biology," vol. i.. p. 74. flbid. 



DEATH. 155 

less influences and activities of nature and of 
his fellow-men. In biological language he is 
said thus to be "in correspondence with his 
environment." He is, that is to say, in active 
and vital connection with them, influencing 
them possibly, but especially being influenced 
by them. Now it is in virtue of this corres- 
pondence that he is entitled to be called alive. 
So long as he is in correspondence with any 
given point of his environment, he lives. To 
keep up this correspondence is to keep up life. 
If his environment changes he must instantly 
adjust himself to the change. And he contin- 
ues living only as long as he succeeds in adjust- 
ing himself to the ''simultaneous and succes- 
sive changes in his environment," as these 
occur. What is meant by a change in his 
environment may be understood from an 
example, which will at the same time define 
more clearly the intimacy of the relation 
between environment and organism. Let us 
take the case of a civil-servant whose environ- 
ment is a district in India. It is a region sub- 
ject to occasional and prolonged droughts 
resulting in periodical famines. When such a 
period of scarcity arises, he proceeds immedi- 
ately to adjust himself to this external change. 
Having the power of locomotion, he may 
remove himself to a more fertile district, or 
possessing the means of purchase, he may add 
to his old environment by importation the 
''external relations," necessary to continued 
life. But if from any cause he fails to adjust 
himself to the altered circumstances, his body 



156 DEATH. 

is thrown out of correspondence with his 
environment, his * 'internal relations" are no 
longer adjusted to his ''external relations, " and 
his life must cease. 

In ordinary circumstances, and in health, 
the human organism is in thorough correspond- 
ence with its surroundings; but when any part 
of the organism by disease or accident is 
thrown out of correspondence, it is in that rela- 
tion dead. 

This Death, this want of correspondence, 
may be either partial or complete. Part of 
the organism may be dead to a part of the 
environment or whole to the whole. Thus 
the victim of famine may have a certain num- 
ber of his correspondences arrested by the 
change in his environment, but not all. Lux- 
uries which he once enjoyed no longer enter 
the country, animals which once furnished his 
table are driven from it. These still exist, but 
they are beyond the limit of his correspondence. 
In relation to these things therefore he is dead. 
In one sense it might be said that it was the 
environment which played him false; in 
another, that it was his own organization — that 
he was unable to adjust himself, or did not. 
But, however caused, he pays the penalt}- with 
partial Death. 

Suppose next the case of a man who is 
thrown out of correspondence with a part of 
his environment by some physical infirmity. 
Let it be, that by disease or accident he has 
been deprived of the use of his ears. The 
deaf man, in virtue of this imperfection, is 



DEATH. 157 

thrown out of rapport with a large and well- 
defined part of the environment, namely, its 
sounds. With regard to that '* external rela- 
tion," therefore, he is no longer living. Part 
of him may truly be held to be insensible or 
**Dead. " A man who is also blind is thrown 
out of correspondence with another large part of 
his environment. The beauty of sea and sky, the 
forms of cloud and mountain, the features and 
gestures of friends, are to him as if they were 
not. They are there, solid and real, but not 
to him; he is still further ''Dead." Next, let 
it be conceived, the subtle finger of cerebral 
disease lays hold of him. His whole brain is 
affected, and the sensory nerves, the medium 
of communication with the environment, cease 
altogether to acquaint him with what is doing 
in the outside world. The outside world is 
still there, but not to him ; he is still further 
''Dead." And so the death of parts goes on. 
He becomes less and less alive. "Were the 
animal frame not the complicated machine we 
have seen it to be death might come as a simple 
and gradual dissolution, the 'sans everything' 
being the last stage of the successive loss of 
fundamental powers."* But finally some 
important part of the mere animal frame-work 
that remains breaks down. The correlation 
with the other parts is very intimate, and the 
stoppage of correspondence with one means an 
interference with the work of the rest. Some- 
thing central has snapped, and all are thrown 
out of work. The lungs refuse to correspond 

♦Foster's "Physiology," p. 642. 



158 DEATH. 

with the air, the heart with the blood. There 
is now no correspondence whatever with 
environment — the thing, for it is now a thing, 
is Dead. 

This then is Death; '*part of the framework 
breaks down,*' * 'something has snapped" — 
these phrases by which we describe the phases 
of death yield their full meaning. They are 
different ways of saying that ''correspondence" 
has ceased. And the scientific meaning of 
Death now becomes clearly intelligible. Dying 
is that break-down in an organism which throws 
it out of correspondence with some necessary 
part of the environment. Death is the result 
produced, the want of correspondence. We 
do not say that this is all that is involved. But 
this is the root idea of Death — Failure to adjust 
internal relations to external relations, failure 
to repair the broken inward connection suffi- 
ciently to enable it to correspond again with the 
old surroundings. These preliminary state- 
ments may be fitly closed with the words of 
Mr. Herbert Spencer: "Death by natural 
decay occurs because of old age, the relations 
between assimilation, oxidization, and genesis 
of force going on in the organism gradually fall 
out of correspondence with the relations 
between oxygen and food and absorption of 
heat by the environment. Death from disease 
arises either when the organism is congenitally 
defective in its power to balance the ordinary 
external actions by the ordinary internal 
actions, or when there has taken place some 
unusual external action to which there was no 



DEATH. 159 

answering internal action. Death by accident 
implies some neighboring mechanical changes 
of which the causes are either unnoticed from 
inattention, or are so intricate that their 
results cannot be foreseen, and consequently 
certain relations in the organism are not 
adjusted to the relations in the environment. "* 

With the help of these plain biological terms 
we may now proceed to examine the parallel 
phenomenon of Death in the spiritual world. 
The factors with which we have to deal are 
two in number as before — Organism and En- 
vironment. The relation between them may 
once more be denominated by ''correspond- 
ence.*' And the truth to be emphasized re- 
solves itself into this, that Spiritual Death is a 
want of correspondence between the organism 
and the spiritual environment. 

What is the spiritual environment? This 
term obviously demands some further defini- 
tion. For Death is a relative term. And be- 
fore we can define Death in the spiritual world 
we must first apprehend the particular relation 
with reference to which the expression is to be 
employed. We shall best reach the nature of 
this relation by considering for a moment the 
subject of environment generally. By the 
natural environment we mean the entire sur- 
roundings of the natural man, the entire exter- 
nal world in which he lives and moves and has 
his being. It is not involved in the idea that 
either with all or part of this environment he 
is in immediate correspondence. Whether he 

*Op. cit., pp. 88, 89. 



160 DEATH. 

corresponds with it or not, it is there. There 
is in fact a conscious environment and an en- 
vironment of which he is not conscious: and it 
must be borne in mind that the conscious en- 
vironment is not all the environment that is. 
All that surrounds him, all that environs him, 
conscious or unconscious, is environment. The 
moon and stars are part of it, though in the 
daytime he may not see them. The polar 
regions are parts of it, though he is seldom 
aware of their influence. In its widest sense 
environment simply means all else that is. 

Now it will next be manifest that different 
organisms correspond with this environment 
in varying degrees of completeness or incom- 
pleteness. At the bottom of the biological 
scale we find organisms which have only the 
most limited correspondence with their sur- 
roundings. A tree, for example, corresponds 
with the soil about its stem, with the sunlight 
and with the air in contact with its leaves. 
But it is shut off by its comparatively low de- 
velopment from a whole world to which higher 
forms of life have additional access. The want 
of locomotion alone circumscribes most seri- 
ously its area of correspondence, so that to a 
large part of surrounding nature it may truly 
be said to be dead. So far as consciousness is 
concerned, we should be justified indeed in say- 
ing that it was not alive at all. The murmur 
of the stream which bathes its roots affects it 
not. The marvelous insect-life beneath its 
shadow excites in it no wonder. The tender 
maternity of the bird which has its nest among 



DEATH. 161 

its leaves stirs no responsive sympathy. It 
cannot correspond with those things. To 
stream and insect and bird it is insensible, tor- 
pid, dead. For this is Death, this irrespon- 
siveness. 

The bird, again, which is higher in the scale 
of life, corresponds with a wider environment. 
The stream is real to it, and the insect. It 
knows what lies behind the hill ; it listens to 
the love-song of its mate. And to much be- 
sides beyond the simple world of the tree this 
higher organism is alive. The bird we should 
say is more living than the tree; it has a cor- 
respondence with a larger area of environment. 
But this bird-life is not yet the highest life. 
Even within the immediate bird-environment 
there is much to which the bird must still be 
held to be dead. Introduce a higher organ- 
ism, place man himself within this same 
environment, and see how much more living 
he is. A hundred things which the bird never 
saw in insect, stream and tree appeal to him. 
Each single sense has something to correspond 
with. Each faculty finds an appropriate exer- 
cise. Man is a mass of correspondences, and 
because of these, because he is alive to count- 
less objects and influences to which lower 
organisms are dead, he is the most living of 
all creatures. 

The relativity of Death will now have be- 
come sufficiently obvious. Man being left out 
of account, all organisms are seen as it were 
to be partly living and partly dead. The tree, 
in correspondence with a narrow area of envi- 

11 Natural Law 



162 DEATH. 

ronment, is to that extent alive ; to all beyond, 
to the all but infinite sea beyond, it is dead. 
A still wider portion of this vast area is the 
possession of the insect and the bird. Theirs 
also, nevertheless, is but a little world, and to 
an immense further area insect and bird are 
dead. All organisms likewise are living and 
dead — living to all within the circumference of 
their correspondences, dead to all beyond. As 
we rise in the scale of life, however, it will be 
observed that the sway of Death is gradually 
weakened. More and more of the environ- 
ment becomes accessible as we ascend, and 
the domain of life in this way slowly extends in 
ever- widening circles. But until man appears 
there is no organism to correspond with the 
whole environment. Till then the outermost 
circles have no correspondents. To the inhabi- 
ants of the innermost spheres they are as if 
they were not. 

Now follows a momentous question. Is man 
in correspondence with the whole environ- 
ment? When we reach the highest living or- 
ganism, is the final blow dealt to the kingdom 
of Death? Has the last acre of infinite area 
been taken in by his finite faculties? Is his 
conscious environment the whole environment? 
Or is there, among these outermost circles, 
one which with his multitudinous correspond- 
ence she fails to reach? If so, this is Death. 
The question of Life or Death to him is the 
question of the amount of remaining environ- 
ment he is able to compass. If there be one 
circle or one segment of a circle which he yet 



DEATH. 163 

fails to reach, to correspond with, to know, to 
be influenced by, he is, with regard to the cir- 
cle or segment, dead. 

What, then, practically, is the state of the 
case? Is man in corresponence with the whole 
environment or is he not? There is but one 
answer. He is not. Of men generally it can- 
not be said that they are in living contact with 
that part of the environment which is called 
the spiritual world. In introducing this new 
term spiritual world, observe, we are not inter- 
polating a new factor. This is an essential 
part of the old idea. We have been following 
out an ever-widening environment from point 
to point, and now we reach the outermost 
zones. The spiritual world is simply the outer- 
m.ost segment, circle, or circles of the natural 
world. For purposes of convenience we sepa- 
rate the two just as we separate the animal 
world from the plant. But the animal world 
and the plant world are the same world. 
They are different parts of one environment. 
And the natural and spiritual are likewise one. 
The inner circles are called the natural, the 
outer the spiritual. And we call them spiritual 
simply because they are beyond us or beyond 
a part of us. What we have correspondence 
with, that we call natural; what we have little 
or no correspondence with, that we call spirit- 
ual. But when the appropriate corresponding 
organism appears, the organism, that is, which 
can freely communicate with these outer cir- 
cles, the distinction necessarily disappears. 



164 DEATH. 

The spiritual to it becomes the outer circle of 
the natural. 

Now of the great mass of living organisms, 
of the great mass of men, is it not to be 
affirmed that they are out of correspondence 
with this outer circle? Suppose, to make the 
final issue more real, we give this outermost 
circle of environment a name. Suppose we 
call it God. Suppose also we substitute a word 
for "correspondence" to express more inti- 
mately the personal relation. Let us call it 
Communion. We can now determine accu- 
rately the spiritual relation of different sections 
of mankind. Those who are in communion 
with God live, those who are not are dead. 

The extent or depth of this communion, the 
varying degrees of correspondence in different 
individuals, and the less or more abundant life 
which these result in, need not concern us for 
the present. The task we have set ourselves 
is to investigate the essential nature of Spirit- 
ual Death. And we have found it to consist 
in a want of communion with God. The un- 
spiritual man is he who lives in the circum- 
scribed environment of this present world. 
''She that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she 
liveth." ''To be carnally minded is death." 
To be carnally minded, translated into the 
language of science, is to be limited in ones 
correspondence to the environment of the natu- 
ral man. It is no necessary part of the concep- 
tion that the mind should be either purposely 
irreligious, or directly vicious. The mind of 
the flesh, by its very nature, limited capacity, 



DEATH. 165 

and timeward tendency, is Death. This 
earthly mind may be of noble calibre, en- 
riched by culture, high-toned, virtuous and 
pure. But if it know not God? What though 
its correspondences reach to the stars of heaven 
or grasp the magnitudes of Time and Space? 
The stars of heaven are not heaven. Space is 
not God. This mind, certainly, has life, life 
up to its level. There is no trace of Death. 
Possibly, too, it carries its deprivations lightly, 
and, up to its level, lives content. We do 
not picture the possessor of this carnal mind as 
in any sense a monster. We have said he may 
be high-toned, virtuous, and pure. The plant 
is not a monster because it is dead to the voice 
of the bird ; nor is he a monster who is dead 
to the voice of God. The contention at pres- 
ent simply is that he is Dead. 

We do not need to go to Revelation for the 
proof of this. That has been rendered un- 
necessary by the testimony of the Dead them- 
selves. Thousands have uttered them»eives 
upon their relation to the Spiritual World, and 
from their own lips we have the proclamation 
of their Death. The language of theology in 
describing the state of the natural man is 
often regarded as severe. The Pauline anthro- 
pology has been challenged as an insult to 
human nature. Culture has opposed the doc- 
trine that '* The natural man receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish- 
ness unto him: neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned. ' * And 
even some modern theologies have refused to 



166 DEATH. 

accept the most plain of the aphorisms of 
Jesus, that ''Except a man be born again he 
cannot see the Kingdom of God." But this 
stern doctrine of the spiritual deadness of hu- 
manit}^ is no mere dogma of a past theology. 
The history of thought during the present cen- 
tury proves that the world has come round 
spontaneously to the position of the first. 
One of the ablest philosophical schools of the 
day erects a whole antichristian system on this 
very doctrine. Seeking by means of it to sap 
the foundation of spiritual religion, it stands 
unconsciously as the most significant witness 
for its truth. What is the creed of the Agnos- 
tic but the confession of the spiritual numb- 
ness of humanity? The negative doctrine 
which it reiterates with such sad persistency, 
what is it but the echo of the oldest of scien- 
tific and religious truths? And what are all 
these gloomy and rebellious infidelities, these 
touching, and too sincere confessions of uni- 
versal nescience, but a protest against this 
ancient law of Death? 

The Christian apologist never further misses 
the mark than when he refuses the testimony 
of the Agnostic to himself. When the Agnos- 
tic tells me he is blind and deaf, dumb, torpid 
and dead to the Spiritual world, I must believe 
him. Jesus tells me that. Paul tells me that. 
Science tells me that. He knows nothing of 
this outermost circle; and we are compelled to 
trust his sincerity as readily when he deplores 
it as if, being a man without an ear, he pro- 
fessed to know nothinor of a musical world or 



DEATH. 167 

being without taste, of a world of art. The 
nescience of the Agnostic philosophy is the 
proof from experience that to be carnally 
minded is Death. Let the theological value of 
the concession be duly recognized. It brings 
no solace to the unspiritual man to be told he is 
mistaken. To say he is self-deceived is neither 
to compliment him nor Christianity. He 
builds in all sincerity who raises his altar to 
the Unknown God. He does not know God. 
With all his marvelous and complex corres- 
pondences, he is still one correspondence short. 
It is a point worthy of special note that the 
proclamation of this truth has always come 
from science rather than from religion. Its 
general acceptance by thinkers is based upon 
the universal failure of a universal experi- 
ment. The statement, therefore, that the nat- 
ural man discerneth not the things of the spirit, 
is never to be charged against the intolerance 
of theology. There is no point at which the- 
ology has been more modest than here. It has 
left the preaching of a great fundamental truth 
almost entirely to philosophy and science. 
And so very moderate has been its tone, so 
slight has been the emphasis placed upon the 
paralysis of the natural with regard to the 
spiritual, that it may seem to some to have 
been intolerably tolerant. No harm cer- 
tainly could come now, no offence could be 
given to science, if religion asserted more 
clearly its right to the spiritual world. Sci- 
ence has paved the way for the reception of one 
of the most revolutionary doctrines of Chris- 



168 DEATH. 

tianity; and if Christianity refuses to take 
advantage of the opening it will manifest a cul- 
pable want of confidence in itself. There 
never was a time when its fundamental doc- 
trines could more boldly be proclaimed, or 
when they could better secure the respect and 
arrest the interest of Science. 

To all this, and apparently with force, it 
may, however, be objected that to every man 
who truly studies Nature there is a God. Call 
him by whatever name — a Creator, a Supreme 
Being, a Great First Cause, a Power that makes 
for Righteousness — Science has a God; and he 
who believes in this, in spite of all protest, pos- 
sesses a theology. *'If we will look at things, 
and not merely at words, we shall soon see 
that the scientific man has a theology and a 
God, a most impressive theology, a most awful 
and glorious God. I say that man believes in 
a God, who feels himself in the presence of a 
Power which is not himself, and is immeasu- 
rably above himself, a Power in the contempla- 
tion of which he is absorbed, in the knowledge 
of which he finds safety and happiness. And 
such now is Nature to the scientific man.'** 

Such now, we humbly submit, is Nature to 
very few. Their own confession is against it. 
That they are ''absorbed" in the contempla- 
tion we can well believe. That they might 
*'find safety and happiness" in the knowledge 
of Him is also possible — if they had it. But 
this is just what they tell us they have not. 
What they deny is not a God. It is the cor- 

* "Natural Religion," p. 19. 



DEATH. 169 

respondence. The very confession of the Un- 
knowable is itself the dull recognition of an 
environment beyond themselves, and for which 
they feel they lack the correspondence. It is 
this want that makes their God the Unknown 
God. And it is this that makes them dead. 

We have not said, or implied, that there is 
not a God of Nature. We have not affirmed 
that there is no Natural Religion. We are 
assured there is. We are even assured that 
without a Religion of Nature, Religion is only 
half -complete; that without a God of Nature, 
the God of Revelation is only half-intelligible 
and only partially known. God is not confined 
to the outermost circle of environment, He 
lives and moves and has His being in the 
whole. Those who only seek Him in the fur- 
ther zone can only find a part. The Christian 
who knows not God in Nature, who does not, 
that is to say, correspond with the whole en* 
vironment, most certainly is partially dead. 
The author of **Ecce Homo" may be partially 
right when he says: **I think a bystander 
would say that though Christianity had in it 
something far higher and deeper and more en- 
nobling, yet the average scientific man wor- 
ships just at present a more awful, and, as it 
were, a greater Deity than the average Chris- 
tian. In so many Christians the idea of God 
has been degraded by childish and little-minded 
teaching; the Eternal and the Infinite and the 
All-embracing has been represented as the 
head of the clerical interest, as a sort of clergy- 
man, as a sort of school-master, as a sort of phil- 

12 Natural Law 



170 DEATH. 

anthropist. But the scientific man knows Him 
to be eternal ; in astronomy, in geology, he be- 
comes familiar with the countless millenniums 
of His lifetime. The scientific man strains his 
mind actually to realize God's infinity. As far 
off as the fixed stars he traces Him, ^distance 
inexpressible by numbers that have name. ' 
Meanwhile, to the theologian, infinity and eter- 
nity are very much of empty words when 
applied to the Object of his worship. He does 
not realize them in actual facts and definite 
computations."* Let us accept this rebuke. 

The principle that want of correspondence is 
Death applies all round. He who knows not 
God in Nature only partially lives. The con- 
verse of this, however, is not true; and that is 
the point we are insisting on. He who knows 
God only in Nature lives not. There is no 
** correspondence" with an Unknown God, no 
*' continuous adjustment" to a fixed First 
Cause. There is no *' assimilation" of Natural 
Law; no growth in the Image of *'the All-em- 
bracing." To correspond with the God of Sci- 
ence assuredly is not to live. ''This is Life 
Eternal, to know Thee, the true God, and 
Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent." 

From the service we have tried to make nat- 
ural science render to our religion, we might 
be expected possibly to take up the position 
that the absolute contribution of Science to 
Revelation was very great. On the contrary, 
it is very small. The absolute contribution, 
that is, is very small. The contribution, on 

* "Natural Religion," p. 20. 



DEATH. 171 

the whole, is immense, vaster than we have yet 
any idea of. But without the aid of the higher 
Revelation this many-toned and far-reaching 
voice had been forever dumb. The light of 
Nature, say the most for it, is dim — how dim 
we ourselves, with the glare of other Light 
upon the modern world, can only realize when 
we seek among the pagan records of the past 
for the gropings after truth of those whose only 
light was this. Powerfully significant and 
touching as these efforts were in their success, 
they are far more significant and touching in 
their failure. For they did fail. It requires 
no philosophy now to speculate on the adequacy 
or inadequacy of the Religion of Nature. For 
us who could never weigh it rightly in the 
scales of Truth it has been tried in the balance 
of experience and found wanting. Theism is 
the easiest of all religions to get, but the most 
difficult to keep. Individuals have kept it, but 
nations never. Socrates and Aristotle, Cicero 
and Epictetus had a theistic religion; Greece 
and Rome had none. And even after getting 
Vs^hat seems like a firm place in the minds of 
men, its unstable equilibrium sooner or later 
betrays itself. On the one hand, theism has 
always fallen into the wildest polytheism, or, 
on the other, into the blankest atheism. *'It 
is an indubitable historical fact that, outside of 
the sphere of special revelation, man has never 
obtained such a knowledge of God as a respon- 
sible and religious being plainly requires. The 
wisdom of the heathen world, at its very best, 
was utterly inadequate to the accomplishment 



172 DEATH. 

of such a task as creating a due abhorrence of 
sin, controlling the passions, purifying the 
heart and ennobling the conduct."* 

What is the inference? That this poor rush- 
light by itself was never meant to lend the ray 
by which man should read the riddle of the 
universe. The mystery is too impenetrable 
and remote, for its uncertain flicker to more 
than make the darkness deeper. What, in- 
deed, if this were not a light at all, but only 
part of a light — the carbon point, the fragment 
of calcium, the reflector in the great Lantern 
which contains the Light of the World? 

This is one inference. But the most import- 
ant is that the absence of the true Light means 
moral Death. The darkness of the natural 
world to the intellect is not all. What history 
testifies to is, first the partial, and then the 
total eclipse of virtue that always follows the 
abandonment of belief in a personal God. It 
is not, as has been pointed out a hundred 
times, that morality in the abstract disappears, 
but the motive and sanction are gone. There 
is nothing to raise it from the dead. Man's 
attitude to it is left to himself. Grant that 
morals have their own base in human life; 
grant that Nature has a Religion whose creed 
is Science ; there is yet nothing apart from God 
to save the world from moral Death. Morality 
has the power to dictate, but none to move. 
Nature directs, but cannot control. As was 
wisely expressed in one of many pregnant ut- 
terances during a recent Symposium, *' Though 

* Prof. Flint, "Theism," p. 305. 



DEATH. 173 

the decay of religion may leave the institutes 
of morality intact, it drains off their inward 
power. The devout faith of men expresses and 
measures the intensity of their moral nature, 
and it cannot be lost without a remission of 
enthusiasm, and under this low pressure, the 
successful re-entrance of importunate desires 
and clamorous passions which have been driven 
back. To believe in an ever-living and perfect 
Mind, supreme over the universe, is to invest 
moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, 
and lift them from the provincial stage of hu- 
man society to the imperishable theatre of all 
being. When planted thus in the very sub- 
stance of things, they justify and support the 
ideal estimates of the conscience ; they deepen 
every guilty shame; they guarantee every 
righteous hope ; and they help the will with a 
Divine casting-vote in every balance of temp- 
tation. "* That morality has a basis in human 
society, that Nature has a Religion, surely 
makes the Death of the soul when left to itself 
all the more appalling. It means that, between 
them, Nature and morality provide all for vir- 
tue — except the Life to live it. 

It is at this point accordingly that our sub- 
ject comes into intimate contact with Religion. 
The proposition that **to be carnally minded is 
Death" even the moralist will assent to. But 
when it is further announced that *'the carnal 
mind is enmity against God'* we find ourselves 



* Martineau. Vide the whole Symposium on "The Influences 
upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief."— Nineteenth 
Century, vol. i. pp. 331-531. 



174 DEATH. 

in a different region. And when we find it 
also stated that ''the wages of sin is Death/* 
we are in the heart of the profoundest ques- 
tions of theology. What before was merely 
''enmity against society" becomes "enmity 
against God;" and what was "vice" is "sin." 
The conception of a God gives an altogether 
new color to worldliness and vice. Worldliness 
it changes into heathenism, vice into blas- 
phemy. The carnal mind, the mind which is 
turned away from God, which will not corres- 
pond with God — this is not moral only, but 
spiritual Death. And Sin, that which sepa- 
rates from God, which disobeys God, which can 
not in that state correspond with God — this is 
hell. 

To the estrangement of the soul from God 
the best of theology traces the ultimate cause 
of sin. Sin is simply apostacy from God, un- 
belief in God. "Sin is manifest in its true 
character when the demand of holiness in the 
conscience, presenting itself to the man as one 
of loving submission to God, is put from him 
with aversion. Here sin appears as it really is, 
a turning away from God; and while the man's 
guilt is enhanced, there ensues a benumbing 
of the heart resulting from the crushing of 
those higher impulses. This is what is meant 
by the reprobate state of those who reject 
Christ and will not believe the Gospel, so often 
spoken of in the New Testament; this unbelief 
is just the closing of the heart against the 
highest love. "* The other view of sin, prob- 

* Muller; ''Christian Doctrine of Sin," 2d Ed., vol. i. p. 131. 



DEATH. 175 

ably, the more popular at present, that sin con- 
sists in selfishness, is merely this from another 
aspect. Obviously if the mind turns away from 
one part of the environment it will only do so 
under some temptation to correspond with 
another. This temptation, at bottom, can only 
come from one source — the love of self. The 
irreligious man's correspondences are concen- 
trated upon himself. He worships himself. 
Self-gratification rather than self-denial ; inde- 
pendence rather than submission — these are 
the rules of life. And this is at once the poor- 
est and the commonest form of idolatry. 

But whichever of these views of sin we em- 
phasize we find both equally connected with 
Death. If sin is estrangement from God, this 
very estrangement is Death. It is a want of 
correspondence. If sin is selfishness, it is con- 
ducted at the expense of life. Its wages are 
Death — ''he that loveth his life,'* said Christ, 
''shall lose it." 

Yet the paralysis of the moral nature apart 
from God does not only depend for its evidence 
upon theology or even upon history. From 
the analogies of Nature one would expect this 
result as a necessary consequence. The devel- 
opment of any organism in any direction is 
dependent on its environment. A living cell 
cut off from air will die. A seed-germ apart 
from moisture and an appropriate temperature 
will make the ground its grave for centuries. 
Human nature, likewise, is subject to similar 
conditions. It can only develop in presence of 
its environment. No matter what its possibil- 



176 DEATH. 

ities may be, no matter what vSeeds of thought 
or virtue, what germs of genius or of art, lie 
latent in its breast until the appropriate envi- 
ronment presents itself the correspondence is 
denied, the development discouraged, the 
most splendid possibilities of life remain unre- 
alized, and thought and virtue, genius and art, 
are dead. The true environment of the moral 
life is God. Here conscience wakes. Here 
kindles love. Duty here becomes heroic ; and 
that righteousness begins to live which alone is 
to live forever. But if this Atmosphere is 
not, the dwarfed soul must perish for mere 
want of its native air. And its Death is a 
strictly natural Death. It is not an excep- 
tional judgment upon Atheism. In the same 
circumstances, in the same averted relation to 
their environment, the poet, the musican, the 
artist, would alike perish to poetry, to music, 
and to art. Every environment is a cause. 
Its effect upon me is exactly proportionate to 
my correspondence with it. If I correspond 
with part of it, part of myself is influenced. If 
I correspond with more, more of myself is in- 
fluenced ; if with all, all is influenced. If I 
correspond with the world, I become worldly ; 
if with God, I become Divine. As without 
correspondence of the scientific man with the 
natural environment there could be no Science 
and no action founded on the knowledge of 
Nature, so without communion with the spir- 
itual environment there can be no Religion. 
To refuse to cultivate the religious relation 



DEATH. 177 

is to deny to the soul its highest right— the 
right to a further evolution !* 

We have already admitted that he who knows 
not God raay not be a monster; we cannot say 
he will not be a dwarf. This precisely, and on 
perfectly natural principles, is what he must 
be. You can dwarf a soul just as you can 
dwarf a plant, by depriving it of a full environ- 
ment. Such a soul for a time may have *'a 
name to live. ' ' Its character may betray no 
sign of atrophy. But its very virtue somehow 
has the pallor of a flower that is grown in dark- 
ness, or as the herb which has never seen the 
sun, no fragrance breathes from its spirit. To 
morality, possibly, this organism offers the ex- 
ample of an irreproachable life ; but to science 
it is an instance of arrested development ; and 
to religion it presents the spectacle of a corpse 
— a living Death. With Ruskin, ''I do not 
wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often 
at what they lose.*' 

* It would not be difficult to show, were this the immediate sub- 
ject, that it is not only a right but a duty to exercise the spirit- 
ual faculties, a duty demanded not by religion merely, but by 
science. Upon biological principles man owes his full develop- 
ment to himself, to nature, and to his fellow-men. Thus Mr. 
Herbert Spencer affirms, "The performance of every function 
is, in a sense, a moral obligation. It is usually thought that 
morality requires us only to restrain such vital activities as in 
our present state, are often pushed to excess, or such as conflict 
with average welfare, special or general; but it also requires us 
to carry on these vital activities up to their normal limits. All 
the animal functions, in common with all the higher functions, 
have, as thus understood, their imperativeness."— "The Data of 
Ethics," 2d Ed..:p. 76. 



13 



MORTIFICATION. 



179 



*'If, by tying its main artery, we stop most of the 
blood going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb per- 
forms its function, those parts which are called into play 
must be wasted faster than they are repaired : whence 
eventual disablement. The relation between due re- 
ceipt of nutritive matters through its arteries, and due 
discharge of its duties by the limb, is a part of the 
physical order. If instead of cutting off the supply to a 
particular limb, we bleed the patient largely, so drafting 
away the materials needed for repairing not one limb, 
but all limbs, and not limbs only but viscera, there re- 
sults both a muscular debility and an en feeble men t of 
the vital functions. Here, again, cause and effect are 
necessarily related. . . . Pass now to those actions more 
commonly thought of as the occasions for rules of con- 
duct.** Herbert Spencer. 



180 



MORTIFICATION. 

"Mortify therefore your members which are upon 
earth."— Paul. 

*'0 Star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there 
To waft us home the message of despair?" — Campbell. 

The definition of Death which science has 
given US is this: A falling out of correspond- 
ence with environment. When, for example, a 
man loses the sight of his eyes, his correspond- 
ence with the environing world is curtailed. 
His life is limited in an important direction ; he 
is less living than he was before. If, in addi- 
tion, he lose the senses of touch and hearing, 
his correspondences are still further limited; 
he is therefore still further dead. And when 
all possible correspondences have ceased, when 
the nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, 
when the lungs close their gates against the 
air, when the heart refuses to correspond with 
the blood by so much as another beat, the in- 
sensate corpse is wholly and forever dead. 
The soul, in like manner, which has no corres- 
pondence with the spiritual environment is 
spiritually dead It may be that it never pos- 
sessed the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, or 
a heart which throbbed in response to the love 
of God. If so, having never lived, it cannot 
be said to have died. But not to have these 

181 



182 MORTIFICATION. 

correspondences is to be in the state of Death. 
To the spiritual world, to the Divine Environ- 
ment, it is dead — as a stone which has never 
lived is dead to the environment of the organic 
world. 

Having already abundantly illustrated this 
use of the symbol Death, we may proceed to 
deal with another class of expressions where 
the same term is employed in an exactly oppo- 
site connection. It is a proof of the radical 
nature of religion that a word so extreme 
should have to be used again and again in 
Christian teaching, to define in different direc- 
tions the true spiritual relations of mankind. 
Hitherto we have concerned ourselves with the 
condition of the natural man with regard to 
the spiritual world. We have now to speak of 
the relations of the spiritual man with regard 
to the natural world. Carrying with us the 
same essential principle — want of correspond- 
ence — underlying the meaning of Death, we 
shall find that the relation of the spiritual man 
to the natural world, or at least to part of it, is 
to be that of Death. 

When the natural man becomes the spiritual 
man, the great change is described by Christ 
as a passing from Death unto Life. Before 
the transition occurred, the practical difficulty 
was this, how to get into correspondence with 
the new environment? But no sooner is this 
correspondence established than the problem 
is reversed. The question now is, how to get 
out of correspondence with the old environ- 
ment? The moment the new life is be- 



MORTIFICATION. 183 

gun there comes a genuine anxiety to break 
with the old. For the former environment 
has now become embarrassing. It refuses its 
dismissal from consciousness. It competes 
doggedly with the new environment for a 
share of the correspondences. And in a hun- 
dred ways the former traditions, the memories 
and passions of the past, the fixed associations 
and habits of the earlier life, now complicate 
the new relation. The complex and bewil- 
dered soul, in fact, finds itself in correspond- 
ence with two environments, each with urgent 
but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul 
living in a double world, a world whose inhabi- 
tants are deadly enemies, and engaged in per- 
petual civil-war. 

The position of things is perplexing. It is 
clear that no man can attempt to live both 
lives. To walk both in the flesh and in the 
spirit is morally impossible. **No man,'' as 
Christ so often emphasized, "can serve two 
masters. ' ' And yet, as a matter of fact, here 
is the new-born being in communication with 
both environments. With sin and purity, light 
and darkness, time and Eternity, God and 
Devil, the confused and undecided soul is now 
in correspondence. What is to be done in such 
an emergency? How can the New Life de- 
liver itself from the still-persistent past? 

A ready solution of the difficulty would be to 
die. Were one to die organically, to die and "go 
to heaven," all correspondence with the lower 
environment would be arrested at a stroke. 
For Physical Death of course simply means the 



184 MORTIFICATION. 

final stoppage of all natural correspondence 
with this sinful world. But this alternative, 
fortunately or unfortunately, is not open. The 
detention here of body and spirit for a given 
period is determined for us, and we are mor- 
ally bound to accept the situation. We must 
look then for a further alternative. 

Actual Death being denied us, we must ask 
ourselves if there is nothing else resembling it 
• — no artificial relation, no imitation or sem- 
blance of Death which would serve our pur- 
pose. If we cannot yet die absolutely, surely 
the next best thing will be to find a temporary 
substitute. If we cannot die altogether, in 
short, the most we can do is to die as much as 
we can. And we now know this is open to us, 
and how. To die to any environment is to 
withdraw correspondence with it, to cut our- 
selves off, so far as possible, from all commu- 
nication with it. So that the solution of the 
problem will simply be this, for the spiritual 
life to reverse continuously the processes of the 
natural life. The spiritual man having passed 
from Death unto Life, the natural man must 
next proceed to pass from Life unto Death. 
Having opened the new set of correspondences, 
he must deliberately close up the old. Regen- 
eration in short must be accompanied by De- 
generation. 

Now it is no surprise to find that this is the 
process everywhere described and recom- 
mended by the founders of the Christian sys- 
tem. Their proposal to the natural man, or 
rather to the natural part of the spiritual man, 



MORTIFICATION. 185 

with regard to a whole series of inimical rela- 
tions, is precisely this. If he cannot really 
die, he must make an adequate approach to it 
by ''reckoning himself dead.'* Seeing that, 
until the cycle of this organic life is complete 
he cannot die physically, he must meantime 
die morally, reckoning himself 'morally dead 
to that environment which, by competing for 
his correspondences, has now become an ob- 
stacle to his spiritual life. 

The variety of ways in which the New Tes- 
tament writers insist upon this somewhat extra- 
ordinary method is sufficiently remarkable. 
And although the idea involved is essentially 
the same throughout, it will clearly illustrate 
the nature of the act if we examine separately 
three different modes of expression employed 
in the later Scriptures in this connection. The 
methods by which the spiritual man is to with- 
draw himself from the old environment — or 
from that part of it which will directly hinder 
the spiritual life — are three in number: 
First, Suicide. 
SeGond, Mortification. 
Third, Limitation. 

It will be found in practice that these differ- 
ent methods are adapted, respectively, to meet 
three different forms of temptation; so that 
we possess a sufficient warrant for giving a 
brief separate treatment to each. 

First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phrase- 
ology, the advice of Paul to the Christian, with 
regard to a part of his nature, is to commit sui- 
cide. If the Christian is to "live unto God,'' 



186 MORTIFICATION. 

he must **die unto sin.*' If he does not kill 
sin, sin will inevitably kill him. Recognizing 
this, he must set himself to reduce the number 
of his correspondences — retaining and develop- 
ing those which lead to a fuller life, uncondi- 
tionally withdrawing those which in any w^ay 
tend in an opposite direction. This stoppage 
of correspondences is a voluntary act, a cruci- 
fixion of the flesh, a suicide. 

Now the least experience of life will make it 
evident that a large class of sins can only be 
met, as it were, by Suicide. The peculiar feat- 
ure of Death by Suicide is that it is not only 
self-inflicted but sudden. And there are many 
sins which must either be dealt with suddenly 
or not at all. Under this category, for in- 
stance, are to be included generally all sins of 
appetites and passions. Other sins, from their 
peculiar nature, can only be treated by 
methods less abrupt, but the sudden operation 
of the knife is the only successful means of 
dealing with fleshly sins. For example, the 
correspondence of the drunkard with his wine 
is a thing which can be broken off by degrees 
only in the rarest cases. To attempt it grad- 
ually may in an isolated case succeed, but 
even then the slightly prolonged gratifica- 
tion is no compensation for the slow tor- 
ture of a gradually diminishing indulgence. 
"If thine appetite offend thee cut it off," 
may seem at first but a harsh remedy; but 
when we contemplate on the one hand the 
lingering pain of the gradual process, on the 
other its constant peril, we are compelled 



MORTIFICATION. 187 

to admit that the principle is as kind as 
it is wise. The expression **total abstinence,** 
in such a case is a strictly biological formula. 
It implies the sudden destruction of a definite 
portion of environment by the total withdrawal 
of all the connecting links. Obviously, of 
course, total abstinence ought thus to be 
allowed a much wider application than to cases 
of ^^intemperance. *' It is the only decisive 
method of dealing with any sin of the flesh. 
The very nature of the relations makes it ab- 
solutely imperative that every victim of unlaw- 
ful appetite, in whatever direction, shall totally 
abstain. Hence Christ's apparently extreme 
and peremptory language defines the only pos- 
sible, as well as the only charitable, expedient: 
*'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and 
cast it from thee. And if thy right hand 
offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.'' 
The humanity of what is called '*sudden con- 
version'* has never been insisted on as it de- 
serves. In discussing *' Biogenesis, "* it has 
been already pointed out that while growth is 
a slow and gradual process, the change from 
Death to Life alike in the natural and spiritual 
spheres is the work of a moment. Whatever 
the conscious hour of the second birth may be 
— in the case of an adult it is probably defined 
by the first real victory over sin— it is certain 
that on biological principles the real turning- 
point is literally a moment. But on moral and 
humane grounds this misunderstood, perverted, 
and therefore despised doctrine is equally capa- 

* Page 93 



188 MORTIFICATION. 

ble of defence. Were any reformer, with an 
adequate knowledge of human life, to sit down 
and plan a scheme for the salvation of sinful 
men, he would probably come to the conclusion 
that the best way after all, perhaps indeed the 
only way, to turn a sinner from the errors of his 
ways would be to do it suddenly. 

Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off 
one portion from his usual allowance the first 
week, another the second, and so on ! Or sup- 
pose at first he only allowed himself to become 
intoxicated in the evenings, then every second 
evening, then only on Saturday nights, and 
finally only every Christmas? How would a 
thief be reformed if he slowly reduced the num- 
ber of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradu- 
ally diminishing the number of his blows? 
The argument ends with an ad absiirdiim. 
"Let him that stole steal no more, " is the only 
feasible, the only moral, and the only humane 
way. This may not apply to every case, but 
when any part of man's sinful life can be dealt 
with by immediate Suicide, to make him reach 
the end, even were it possible, by a lingering 
death, would be a monstrous cruelty. And 
yet it is this very thing in "sudden conver- 
sion,** that men object to — the sudden change, 
the decisive stand, the uncompromising rup- 
ture with the past, the precipitate flight from 
sin as of one escaping for his life. Men surely 
forget that this is an escaping for one's life. 
Let the poor prisoner run — madly and blindly 
if he likes, for the terror of Death is upon him. 



MORTIFICATION. 189 

God knows, when the pause comes, how the 
chains will gall him still. 

It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as 
a general rule men are linked to evil mainly by 
a single correspondence. Few men break the 
whole law. Our natures, fortunately, are not 
large enough to make us guilty of all, and the 
restraints of circumstances are usually such as 
to leave a loophole in the life of each individual 
for only a single habitual sin. But it is very 
easy to see how this reduction of our inter- 
course with evil to a single correspondence 
blinds us to our true position. Our corres- 
pondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and 
in our calculations as to our spiritual condition 
we emphasize the many negatives rather than 
the single positive. One little weakness, we 
are apt to fancy, all men must be allowed, and 
we -even claim a certain indulgence for that 
apparent necessity of nature which we call 
our besetting sin. Yet to break with the 
lower environments at all, to many, it is to break 
at this single point. It is the only important 
point at which they touch it, circumstances or 
natural disposition making habitual contact at 
other places impossible. The sinful environ- 
ment, in short, to them means a small but well- 
defined area. Now if contact at this point be 
not broken off, they are virtually in contact 
still with the whole environment. There may 
be only one avenue between the new life and 
the old, it may be but a small and subterranean 
passage, but this is sufficient to keep the old 
life in. So long as that remains the victim is 



190 MORTIFICATION. 

not ** dead unto sin," and therefore he cannot 
'*live unto God.*' Hence the reasonableness 
of the words, ** Whosoever shall keep the whole 
law, and yet offend at one point, he is guilty 
of all." In the natural world it only requires a 
single vital correspondence of the body to be 
out of order to ensure Death. It is not neces- 
sary to have consumption, diabetes, and aneu^ 
rism to bring the body to the grave if it have 
heart-disease. He who is fatally diseased in 
one organ necessarily pays the penalty with his 
life, though all the others be in perfect health. 
And such, likewise, are the mysterious unity 
and correlation of functions in the spiritual 
organism that the disease of one member may 
involve the ruin of the whole. The reason, 
therefore, with which Christ follows up the 
announcement of His Doctrine of Mutilation, 
or local Suicide, finds here at once its justifica- 
tion and interpretation: ''If thy right eye 
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee : 
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy mem- 
bers should perish, and not that thy whole 
body should be cast into hell. And if thy right 
hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from 
thee: for it is profitaWe for thee that one of 
thy members should perish, and not that thy 
whole body should be cast into hell. ' ' 

Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for 
the use of this expression is found in the well- 
known phrases of Paul, "If ye through the 
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye 
shall live," and ''Mortify therefore your mem- 
bers which are upon earth." The word mor- 



MORTIFICATION. 191 

tify here is, literally, to make to die. It is 
used, of course, in no specially technical sense ; 
and to attempt to draw a detailed moral from 
the pathology of mortification would be equally 
fantastic and irrelevant. But without in any 
way straining the meaning it is obvious that 
we have here a slight addition to our concep- 
tion of dying to sin. In contrast with suicide, 
Mortification implies a gradual rather than a 
sudden process. The contexts in which the 
passages occur will make this meaning so clear, 
and are otherwise so instructive in the general 
connection, that we may quote them, from the 
New Version, at length: *'They that are after 
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but 
they that are after the Spirit the things of the 
Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death ; but 
the mind of the Spirit is life and peace : because 
the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; 
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh 
cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, 
but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of 
God dwell in you. But if any man hath not 
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And 
if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of 
sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteous- 
ness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up 
Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you. He that 
raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall 
quicken also your mortal bodies through His 
Spirit that dwelleth in you. So then, brethren, 
we are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the 
flesh : or if ye live after the flesh ye must die ; 



192 MORTIFICATION. 

but if by the spirit ye mortify the doings (marg.) 
of the body, ye shall live."* 

And again, ''If then ye were raised together 
with Christ, seek the things that are above, 
where Christ is seated on the right hand of 
God. Set your mind on the things that are 
above, not on the things that are upon the 
earth. For ye died, and your life is hid v/ith 
Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, 
shall be manifested, then shall ye also with 
Him be manifested in glory. Mortify there- 
fore your members which are upon the earth ; 
fornication, un cleanness, passion, evil desire, 
and covetousness, the which is idolatry; for 
which things' sake cometh the wrath of God 
upon the sons of disobedience ; in the which ye 
also walked aforetime, when ye lived in these 
things. But now put ye also away all these; 
anger, wrath, malice, i»ailing, shameful speak- 
ing out of your mouth: lie not one to another; 
seeing that ye have put off the old man with 
his doings, and have put on the new man, 
which is being renewed unto knowledge after 
the image of Him that created him. "f 

From the nature of the case at here stated it 
is evident that no sudden process could entirely 
transfer a man from the old into the new rela- 
tion. To break altogether, and at every point, 
with the old environment, is a simple impos- 
sibility. So long as the regenerate man is 
kept in this world, he must find the old envir- 
onment at many points a severe temptation. 
Power over very many of the commonest 

*Rome, viii. 5-13. fCol. iii. MO. 




' Drunkard's temptation is a known quantity." — Page 193. 

Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 



MORTIFICATION. 193 

temptations is only to be won by degrees, and 
however anxious one might be to apply the 
summary method to every case, he soon finds 
it impossible in practice. The difficulty in 
these cases arises from a peculiar feature of the 
temptation. The difference between a sin of 
drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin of temper, 
is that in the former case the victim who would 
reform has mainly to deal with the environ- 
ment, but in the latter with the correspon- 
dence. The drunkard's temptation is a known 
and definite quantity. His safety lies in avoid- 
ing some external and material substance. Of 
course, at bottom, he is really dealing with the 
correspondence every time he resists; he is 
distinctly controlling appetite. Nevertheless 
it is less the appetite that absorbs his mind 
than the environment. And so long as he can 
keep himself clear of the ** external relation, '' 
to use Mr. Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he 
has much less difficulty with the "internal rela- 
tion. " The ill-tempered person, on the other 
hand, can make very little of his environ- 
ment. However he may attempt to circum- 
scribe it in certain directions, there will always 
remain a wide and ever-changing area to stim- 
ulate his irascibility. His environment, in 
short, is an inconstant quantity, and his most 
elaborate calculations and precautions must 
often and suddenly fail him. 

What he has to deal with, then, mainly is 
the correspondence, the temper itself. And 
that, he knows well, involves a long and 
humiliating discipline. The case now is not 

13 Natural Law 



194 MORTIFICATION. 

at all a surgical but a medical one, and the 
knife is here of no more use than in a fever. 
A specific irritant has poisoned his veins. And 
the acrid humors that are breaking out all over 
the surface of his life are only to be subdued 
by a gradual sweetening of the inward spirit. 
It is now known that the human body acts 
towards certain fever-germs as a sort of soil. 
The man whose blood is pure has nothing to 
fear. So he whose spirit is purified and sweet- 
ened becomes proof against these germs of sin. 
''Anger, wrath, mal'ice and railing'* in such a 
soil can find no root. The difference between 
this and the former method of dealing with sin 
may be illustrated by another analogy. The 
two processes depend upon two different nat- 
ural principles. The mutilation of a member, 
for instance, finds its analogue in the horticul- 
tural operation of pruning, where the object is 
to divert life from a useless into a useful chan- 
nel. A part of a plant which previously mon- 
opolized a large share of the vigor of the total 
organism, but without yielding any adequate 
return, is suddenly cut off, so that the vital 
processes may proceed more actively in some 
fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is 
well-known: ''Every branch in Me that beareth 
not fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth 
more fruit." The strength of the plant, that 
is, being given to the formation of mere wood, 
a number of useless correspondences have to 
be abruptly closed while the useful connections 
are allowed to remain. The Mortification of a 
member, again, is based on the Law of Degen- 



MORTIFICATION. 195 

eration. The useless member here is not cut 
off, but simply relieved as much as possible of 
all exercise. This encourages the gradual 
decay of the parts, and as it is more and more 
neglected it ceases to be a channel for life at 
all. So an organism * 'mortifies" its members. 

Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number 
of correspondences between man and his 
environment can be stopped in these ways, 
there are many more which neither can be 
reduced by a gradual Mortification nor cut 
short by sudden Death. One reason for this is 
thajt to tamper w^ith these correspondences 
might involve injury to closely related vital 
parts. Or, again, there are organs which are 
really essential to the normal life of the organ- 
ism, and which therefore the organism cannot 
afford to lose even though at times they act 
prejudicially. Not a few correspondences, for 
instance, are not wrong in themselves but only 
in their extremes. Up to a certain point they are 
lawful and necessary; beyond that point they 
may become not only unnecessary but sinful. 
The appropriate treatment in these and similar 
cases consists in a process of Limitation. The 
performance of this operation, it must be con- 
fessed, requires a most delicate hand. It is an 
art, moreover, which no one can teach another. 
And yet, if it is not learned by all who are try- 
ing to lead the Christian life, it cannot be for 
want of practice. For, as we shall see, the 
Christian is called upon to exercise few things 
more frequently. 

An easy illustration of a correspondence 



196 MORTIFICATION. 

which is only wrong when carried to an 
extreme, is the love of money. The love of 
money up to a certain point is a necessity; 
beyond that it may become one of the worst of 
sins. Christ said: *'Ye cannot serve God and 
Mammon.'* The two services, at a definite 
point, become incompatible, and hence corres- 
pondence with one must cease. At what point, 
however, it must cease each man has to deter- 
mine for himself. And in this consist at once 
the difficulty and the dignity of Limitation. 

There is another class of cases where the 
adjustments are still more difficult to deter- 
mine. Innumerable points exist in our sur- 
roundings with which it is perfectly legitimate 
to enjoy, and even to cultivate, correspondence, 
but which privilege, at the same time, it were 
better on the whole that we did not use. Cir- 
cumstances are occasionally such — the demands 
of others upon us, for example, may be so 
clamant — that we have voluntarily to reduce 
the area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead 
of it coming from others, the claim may come 
from a still higher direction. Man's spiritual 
life consists in the number and fulness of his 
correspondences with God. In order to develop 
these he may be constrained to insulate them, 
to enclose them from the other correspondences, 
to shut himself in with them. In many ways 
the limitation of the natural life is the necessary 
condition of the full enjoyment of the spiritual 
life. 

I*n this principle lies the true philosophy of 
self-denial. No man is called to a life of self- 



MORTIFICATION. 197 

denial for its own sake. It is in order to a 
compensation which, though sometimes diffi- 
cult to see, is always real and always propor- 
tionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical relig- 
ion is more lost sight of. We cherish somehow 
a lingering rebellion against the doctrine of 
self-denial — as if our nature, or our circum- 
stances, or our conscience, dealt with us severely 
in loading us with the daily cross. But is it 
not plain after all that the life of self-denial is 
the more abundant life — more abundant just in 
proportion to the ampler crucifixion of the nar- 
rower life? Is it not a clear case of exchange 
— an exchange, however, where the advantage 
is entirely on our side? We give up a corres- 
pondence in which there is a little life to enjoy 
a correspondence in which there is an abun- 
dant life. What though we sacrifice a hun- 
dred such correspondences? We make but the 
more room for the great one that is left. The 
lesson of self-denial, that is to S9,y, of Limita- 
tion, is concentration. Do not spoil your life, 
it says, at the outset with unworthy and im- 
poverishing correspondences ; and if it is grow- 
ing truly rich and abundant, be very jealous of 
ever diluting its high eternal quality with any- 
thing of earth. To concentrate upon a few 
great correspondences, to oppose to the death 
the perpetual petty larceny of our life by trifles 
— these are the conditions for the highest and 
happiest life. It is only Limitation which can 
secure the Illimitable. 

The penalty*of evading self-denial also is just 
that we get the lesser instead of the larger 



198 MORTIFICATION. 

good. The punishment of sin is inseparably 
bound up with itself. To refuse to deny one's 
self is just to be left with the self undenied. 
When the balance of life is struck, the self will 
be found still there. The discipline of life was 
meant to destroy this self, but that discipline 
having been evaded — and we all to some ex- 
tent have opportunities, and too often exercise 
them, of taking the narrow path by the short- 
est cuts — its purpose is balked. But the soul 
is the loser. In seeking to gain its life it has 
really lost it. This is what Christ meant when 
He said: *'He that loveth his life shall lose 
it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall 
keep it unto life eternal." 

Why does Christ say: **Hate Life"? Does 
He mean that life is a sin? No. Life is not 
a sin. Still, He says we must hate it. But 
we must live. Why should we hate what we 
must do? For this reason, Life is not a sin, 
but the love of life may be a sin. And the 
best way not* to love life is to hate it. Is it a 
sin then to love life? Not a sin exactly, but a 
mistake. It is a sin to love some life, a mis- 
take to love the rest. Because that love is lost. 
All that is lavished on it is lost. Christ does 
no say it is wrong to love life. He simply sa3^s 
it is loss. Each man has only ascertain amount 
of life, of time, of attention — a definite measur- 
able quantity. If he gives any of it to this life 
solely it is wasted. Therefore, Christ says, 
Hate life, limit life, lest you steal your love fer 
it from something that deserves it more. 

Now this does not apply to all life. It is 



MORTIFICATION. 199 

'*life in this world" that is to be hated. For 
life in this world implies conformity to this 
world. It may not mean pursuing worldly 
pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets; but a 
subtler thing than that — a silent deference to 
worldly opinion; an almost unconscious lower- 
ing of religious tone to the level of the worldly 
religious world around; a subdued resistance 
to the soul's delicate promptings to greater 
consecration, out of deference to ''breadth" or 
fear of ridicule. These, and such things, are 
what Christ tells us we must hate. For these 
things are of the very essence of worldliness. 
*'If any man love the world," even in this 
sense, *'the love of the Father is not in him." 

There are two ways of hating life, a true and 
a false. Some men hate life because it hates 
them. They have seen through it, and it has 
turned round upon them. They have drunk 
it, and came to the dregs ; therefore, they hate 
it. This is one of the ways in which the man 
who loves his life literally loses it. He loves 
it till he loses it, then he hates it because it has 
fooled him. The other way is the religious. 
For religious reasons a man deliberately braces 
himself to the systematic hating of his life. 
*'No man can serve two masters, for either he 
must hate the one and love the other, or else 
he must hold to the one and despise the 
other." Despising the other — this is hating 
life, limiting life. It is not misanthropy, but 
Christianity. 

This principle, as has been said, contains the 
true philosophy of self-denial. It also holds 



200 MORTIFICATION. 

the secret by which self-denial may be most 
easily borne. A common conception of self- 
denial is that there are a multitude of things 
about life which are to be put down with a 
high hand the moment they make their appear- 
ance. They are temptations which are not to 
be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out 
of being with pang and effort. 

So life comes to be a constant and sore cut- 
ting off of things which we love as our right 
hand. But now suppose one tried boldly to 
hate these things? Suppose we deliberately 
made up our minds as to what things we were 
henceforth to allow to become our life? Sup- 
pose we selected a given area of our environ- 
ment and determined once for all that our cor- 
respondences should go to that alone, fencing 
in this area all round with a morally impassable 
wall? True, to others, we should seem to live 
a poorer life ; they would see that our environ- 
ment was circumscribed, and call us narrow 
because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this 
limited life would be really the fullest life ; it 
would be rich in the highest and worthiest, and 
poor in the smallest and basest correspond- 
ences. The well-defined spiritual life is not 
only the highest life, but it is also the most 
easily lived. The whole cross is more easily 
carried than the half. It is the man who tries 
to make the best of both worlds who makes 
nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve 
two masters misses the benediction of both. 
But he who has taken his stand, who has drawn 
a boundary line, sharp and deep about his re- 



MORTIFICATION. 201 

ligious life, who has marked off all beyond as 
forever forbidden ground to him, finds the 
yoke easy and the burden light. For this for- 
bidden environment comes to be as if it were 
not. His faculties falling out of correspond- 
ence, slowly lose their sensibilities. And the 
balm of Death num^bing his lower nature re- 
leases him for the scarce disturbed communion 
of a higher life. So even here to die is gain. 



14 Natural Law 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



203 



"Supposing that man, in some form, is permitted to 
remain on the earth for a long series of years, we merely 
lengthen out the period, but we cannot escape the final 
catastrophe. The earth will gradually lose its energy 
of rotation, as well as that of revolution round the sun. 
The sun himself will wax dim and become.useless as a 
source of'energy, until at last the favorable condition of 
the present solar system will have quite disappeared. 

"But what happens to our system will happen likewise 
to the whole visible universe, which will, if finite, be- 
come a lifeless mass, if, indeed, it be not doomed to ut- 
ter dissolution. In fine, it will become old and effete, no 
less truly than the individual. It is a glorious garment, 
this visible universe, but not an immortal one. We 
must look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with immor- 
tality as with a garment." The Unseen Universe. 



204 



ETERNAL LIFE. 

"This is Life Eternal — that they might know Thee 
the True God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 
— Jesus Christ. 

** Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were 
there no changes in the environment but such as the 
organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it 
never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, 
there would be eternal existence and eternal knowl- 
edge." — Herbert Spencer. 

One of the most startling achievements o£ 
recent science is a definition of Eternal Life. 
To the religious mind this is a contribution of 
immense moment. For eighteen hundred 
years only one definition of Life Eternal was 
before the world. Now there are two. 

Through all these centuries revealed religion 
had this doctrine to itself. Ethics had a voice, 
as well as Christianity, on the question of the 
summum bonum ; Philosophy ventured to specu- 
late on the Being of a God. But no source 
outside Christianity contributed anything to 
the doctrine of Eternal Life. Apart from Rev- 
elation, this great truth was ungaranteed. It 
was the one thing in the Christian*system that 
most needed verification from without, yet none 
was forthcoming. And never has any further 
light been thrown upon the question why in its 
very nature the Christian Life should be Eter- 

205 



206 ETERNAL LIFE. 

nal. Christianity itself even upon this point 
has been obscure. Its decision upon the bare 
fact is authoritive and specific. But as to what 
there is in the Spiritual Life necessarily en- 
dowing it with the element of Eternity, the 
maturest theology is all but silent. 

It has been reserved for modern biology at 
once to defend and illuminate this central truth 
of the Christian faith. And hence in the inter- 
ests of religion, practical and evidential, this 
second and scientific definition of Eternal Life 
is to be hailed as an announcement of com- 
manding interest. Why it should not yet have 
received the recognition of religious thinkers 
— for already it has lain some years unnoticed 
— is not difficult to understand. The belief in 
Science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough 
to warrant men in searching there for witnesses 
to the highest Christian truths. The inspira- 
tion of Nature, it is thought, extends to the 
humbler doctrines alone. And yet the rever- 
ent inquirer who guides his steps in the right 
direction may find even now in the still dim 
twilight of the scientific world, much that will 
illuminate and intensify his sublimest faith. 
Here, at least, comes, and comes unbidden, the 
opportunity of testing the most vital point of 
the Christian system. Hitherto the Christian 
philosopher has remained content with the 
scientific evidence against Annihilation. Or, 
with Butler, he has reasoned from the Meta- 
morphoses of Insects to a future life. Or, 
again, v/ith the authors of **The Unseen Uni- 
verse," the apologist has constructed elabo- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 207 

rate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon 
the Law of Continuity. But now we may 
draw nearer. For the first time Science 
touches Christianity positively on the doctrine 
of Immortality. It confronts us with an 
actual definition of an Eternal Life, based on 
a full and rigidly accurate examination of the 
necessary conditions. Science does not pre- 
tend that it can fulfil these conditions. Its vo- 
taries make no claim to possess the Eternal 
Life. It simply postulates the requisite condi- 
tions without concerning itself whether any 
organisms should ever appear, or does now 
exist, which might fulfil them. The claim of 
religion, on the other hand, is that there are 
organisms which possess Eternal Life. And 
the problem for us to solve is this : Do those 
who profess to possess Eternal Life fulfil the 
conditions required by Science, or are they 
different conditions? In a word, Is the Chris- 
tian conception of Eternal Life scientific? 

It may be unnecessary to notice at the out- 
set that the definition of Eternal Life drawn 
up by Science was framed without reference to 
religion. It must indeed have been the last 
thought with the thinker to whom we chiefly 
owe it, that in unfolding the conception of a 
life in its very nature necessarily eternal, he 
was contributing to Theology. 

Mr. Herbert vSpencer — for it is to him we 
owe it — would be the first to admit the impar- 
tiality of his definition ; and from the connec- 
tion in which it occurs in his writings, it is ob- 
vious that religion was not even present to his 



208 ETERNAL LIFE. 

mind. He is analyzing with minute care the 
relations between Environment and Life. He 
unfolds the principle according to which Life 
is high or low, long or short. He shows why 
organisms live and why they die. And finally 
he defines a condition of things m which an 
organism would never die — in which it would 
enjoy a perpetual and perfect Life. This to 
him is, of course, but a speculation. Life Eter- 
nal is a biological conceit. The conditions 
necessary to an Eternal Life do not exist in 
the natural world. So that the definition is 
altogether impartial and independent. A Per- 
fect Life, to Science, is simply a thing which 
is theoretically possible — like a Perfect Vacu- 
um. 

Before giving, in so many words, the defini- 
tion of Mr. Herbert Spencer, it will render it 
fully intelligible if we gradually lead up to it by 
a brief rehearsal of the few and simple biologi- 
cal facts on which it is based. In considering 
the subject of Death, we have formerly seen 
that there are degrees of Life. By this is meant 
that some lives have more and fuller corres- 
pondence with Environment than others. The 
amount of correspondence, again, is deter- 
mined by the greater or less complexit^^ of the 
organism. Thus a simple organism like the 
Amoeba is possessed of very few correspond- 
ences. It is a mere sac of transparent struc- 
tureless jelly for which organization has done 
almost nothing, and hence it can only commu- 
nicate with the smallest possible area of Envi- 
ronment. An insect, in virtue of its more com- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 209 

plex structure, corresponds v/ith a wider area. 
Nature has endowed it with special faculties 
for reaching out to the Environment on many 
sides ; it has more life than the Amoeba. In 
other words, it is a higher animal. Man 
again, whose body is still further differentiated, 
or broken up into different correspondences, 
finds himself ^^ rapport v^iih. his surroundings 
to a further extent. And therefore he is 
higher still, more living still. And this law, 
that the degree of Life varies with the degree 
of correspondence, holds to the minutest detail 
throughout the entire range of living things. 
Life becomes fuller and fuller, richer and 
richer, more and more sensitive and respon- 
sive to an ever-widening Environment as we 
rise in the chain of being. 

Now it will speedily appear that a distinct 
relation exists, and must exist, between com- 
plexity and longevity. Death being brought 
about by the failure of an organism to adjust 
itself to some change in the Environment, it 
follows that those organisms which are able to 
adjust themselves most readily and successfully 
will live the longest. They will continue time 
after time to effect the appropriate adjustment, 
and their power of doing so will be exactly 
proportionate to their complexity — that is, to 
the amount of Environment they can control 
with their correspondences. There are, for 
example, in the Environment of every animal 
certain things which are directly or indirectly 
dangerous to Life. If its equipment of corres- 
pondences is not complete enough to enable it 



210 ETERNAL LIFE. 

to avoid these dangers in all possible circum- 
stances, it must sooner or later succumb. The 
organism then with the most perfect set of cor- 
respondences, that is, the highest and mosi 
complex organism, has an obvious advantage 
over less complex forms. It can adjust itselJ 
more perfectly and frequently. But this is 
just the biological way of saying that it car 
live the longest. And hence the relation be- 
tween complexity and longevity may be ex- 
pressed thus — the most complex organisms are 
the longest lived. 

To state and illustrate the proposition con- 
versely may make the point still further clear. 
The less highly organized an animal is, the 
less will be its chance of remaining in length- 
ened correspondence with its environment. 
At some time or other in its career circum- 
stances are sure to occur to which the com- 
paratively immobile organism finds itself struc- 
turally unable to respond. Thus a Medusa 
tossed ashore by a wave, finds itself so out oi 
correspondence with its new surroundings that 
its life must pay the forfeit. Had it been able 
by internal change to adapt itself to external 
change — to correspond sufficiently with the 
new environment, as for example to crawl, as 
an eel would have done, back into that envi- 
ronment with which it had completer corres- 
pondence — its life might have been spared. 
But had this happened it would continue tc 
live henceforth only so long as it could con- 
tinue in correspondence with all the circum- 
stances in which it might find itself. Even if, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 211 

however, it became complex enough to resist 
the ordinary and direct dangers of its environ- 
ment, it might still be out of correspondence 
with others. A naturalist, for instance, might 
take advantage of its want of correspondence 
with particular sights and sounds to capture it 
for his cabinet, or the sudden dropping of a 
yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw might 
cause its untimely death. 

Again, in the case of a bird, in virtue of its 
more complex organization, there is command 
over a much larger area of environment. It 
can take precautions such as the Medusa could 
not; it has increased facilities for securing 
food; its adjustments all around are more com- 
plex ; and therefore it ought to be able to main- 
tain its Life for a longer period. There is still 
a large area, however, over which it has no con- 
trol. Its power of internal change is not com- 
plete enough to afford it perfect correspondence 
with all external changes, and its tenure of life 
is to that extent insecure. Its correspond- 
ence, moreover, is limited even with regard to 
those external conditions with which it has 
been partially established. Thus a bird in 
ordinary circumstances has no difficulty in 
adapting itself to changes of temperature, but 
if these are varied beyond the point at which 
its capacity of adjustment begins to fail — -for 
example, during an extreme winter — the 
organism being unable to meet the condition 
must perish. The human organism, on the 
other hand, can respond to this external con- 
dition, as well as to countless other vicissi- 



212 ETERNAL LIFE. 

tudes under which lower forms would inevit- 
ably succumb. Man's adjustments are to the 
the largest known area of Environment, and 
hence he ought to be able furthest to prolong 
his Life. 

It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend 
in the scale of Life we rise also in the scale of 
longevity. The lowest organisms are, as a 
rule, short-lived, and the rate of mortality 
diminishes more or less regularly as we ascend 
in the animal scale. So extraordinary indeed 
is the mortality among lowly-organized forms 
that in most cases a compensation is actually 
provided, nature endowing them with a mar- 
velously increased fertilitiy in order to guard 
against absolute extinction. Almost all lower 
forms are furnished not only with great repro- 
ductive powers, but with different methods of 
propagation, by which, in various circum- 
stances, and in an incredibly short time, the 
species can be indefinitely multiplied. Ehren- 
berg found that by the repeated subdivisions of 
a single Paramecium^ no fewer than 268,000,000 
similar organisms might be produced in one 
month. This power steadily decreases as v/e 
rise higher in the scale, until forms are reached 
in which one, two, or at most three, come into 
being at a birth. It decreases, however, be- 
cause it is no longer needed. These forms 
have a much longer lease of Life. And it may 
be taken as a rule, although it has exceptions, 
that complexity in animal organisms is always 
associated with longevity. 

It may be objected that these illustrations are 



ETERNAL LIFE. 213 

taken merely from morbid conditions. Bnt 
whether the Life be cut short by accident or 
by disease the principle is the same. All dis- 
solution is brought about practically in the 
same way. A certain condition in the Environ- 
ment fails to be met by a corresponding condi- 
tion in the organism, and this is death. And 
conversely the more an organism in virtue of 
its complexity can adapt itself to all the parts 
of its Environment, the longer it will live. 
*'It is manifest a priori,'' says Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, ''that since changes in the physical 
state of the environment, as also those mechan- 
ical actions and those variations of available 
food which occur in it, are liable to stop the 
processes going on in the organism; and since 
the adaptive changes in the organism have the 
effects of directly or indirectly counterbalanc- 
ing these changes in the environment, it fol- 
lows that the life of the organism will be short 
or long, low or high, according to the extent 
to which changes in the environment are met 
by corresponding changes in the organism. 
Allowing a margin for perturbations, the life 
will continue only while the correspondence 
continues; the completeness of the life will be 
proportionate to the completeness of the corres- 
pondence; and the life will be perfect only 
when the correspondence is perfect.*'* 

We are now all but in sight of our scientific 
definition of Eternal Life. The desideratum is 
an organism with a correspondence of a very 
exceptional kind. It must lie beyond the reach 

♦"Principles of Biology," p. 82. 



214 ETERNAL LIFE. 

of those ** mechanical actions" and those **vari- 
ations of available food," which are ''liable to 
stop the processes going" on in the organism." 
Before we reach an Eternal Life we must pass 
beyond that point at which all ordinary corres- 
pondences inevitably cease. We must find an 
organism so high and complex, that at some 
point in its development it shall have added a 
correspondence which organic death is power- 
less to arrest. We must in short pass beyond 
that finite region where the correspondences 
depend onevanescent and material media, and 
enter a further region where the. Environment 
corresponded with is itself Eternal. Such an 
Environment exists. The Environment of the 
Spiritual world is outside the influence of these 
''mechanical actions," which sooner or later 
interrupt the processes going on in all finite 
organisms. If then we can find an organism 
which has established a correspondence with 
the spiritual world, that correspondence will 
possess the elements of eternity — provided only 
one other condition be fulfilled. 

That condition is that the Environment be 
perfect. If it is not perfect, if it is not the 
highest, if it is endowed with the finite quality 
of change, there can be no guarantee that the 
Life of its correspondents will be eternal. 
Some change might occur in it which the cor- 
respondents had no adaptive changes to meet, 
and Life would cease. But grant a spiritual 
organism in perfect correspondence with a per- 
fect spiritual Environment, and the conditions 
necessary to Eternal Life are satisfied. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 215 

The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
definition of Eternal Life may now be given. 
And it will be seen that they include essen- 
tially the conditions here laid down. *' Perfect 
correspondence would be perfect life. Were 
there no changes in the environment but such 
as the organism had adapted changes to meet, 
and were it never to fail in the efficiency with 
which it met them, there would be eternal 
existence and eternal knowledge. * '* Reserving 
the question as to the possible fulfilment of 
these conditions, let us turn for a moment to 
the definition of Eternal Life laid down by 
Christ. Let us place it alongside the definition 
of Science, and mark the points of contact. 
Uninterrupted correspondence with a perfect 
Environment is Eternal Life according to 
Science. ''This is Life Eternal," said Christ, 
*'that they may know Thee, the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent, "f Life 
Eternal is to know God. To know God is to 
''correspond" with God. To correspond with 
God is to correspond with a Perfect Environ- 
ment. And the orsfanism which attains to 
this, in the nature of things must live forever. 
Here is ''eternal existence and eternal knowl- 
edge. ' ' 

The main point of agreement between the 
scientific and the religious definition is that 
Life consists in a peculiar and personal relation 
defined as a * 'correspondence." This concep- 
tion, that Life consists in correspondences, has 
been so abundantly illustrated already that it 

♦"Principles of Biology/' p. 88. fjohn xvii. 



216 ETERNAL LIFE. 

is now unnecessary to discuss it further. All 
Life indeed consists essentially in correspond- 
ences with various Environments. The artist's 
life is a correspondence with art: the musi- 
cian's with music. To cut them off from these 
Environments is in that relation to cut off their 
Life. To be cut off from all Environment is 
death. To find a new Environment again and 
cultivate relation with it is to find a new Life. 
To Live is to correspond, and to correspond is 
to live. So much is true in Science. But it is 
also true in Religion. And it is of great 
importance to observe that to Religion also the 
conception of Life is a correspondence. No 
truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly 
or wilfully travestied than the doctrine of 
Immortality. The popular idea, in spite of a 
hundred protests, is that Eternal Life is to live 
forever. A single glance at the locus classicus^ 
might have made this error impossible. There 
we are told that Life Eternal is not to live. 
This is Life Eternal — to know. And yet — and 
it is a notorious instance of the fact that men 
who are opposed to Religion will take their 
conception of its profoundest truths from mere 
vulgar perversions — this view still represents 
to many cultivated men the Scriptural doctrine 
of Eternal Life. From time to time the taunt 
is thrown at Religion, not unseldom from lips 
which Science ought to have taught more cau- 
tion, that the Future Life of Christianity is 
simply a prolonged existence, an eternal mon- 
otony, a blind and indefinite continuance of 
being. The Bible never could commit itself 



ETERNAL LIFE. 217 

to any such empty platitude ; nor could Chris- 
tianity ever offer to the world a hope so color- 
less. Not that Eternal Life has nothing to do 
with everlastingness. That is part of the con- 
ception. And it is this aspect of the question 
that first arrests ns in the field of Science. 
But even Science has more in its definition 
than longevity. It has a correspondence and 
an Environment; and although it cannot fill 
up these terms for Religion, it can indicate at 
least the nature of the relation, the kind of 
thing that is meant by Life. Science speaks 
to us indeed of much more than numbers of 
years. It defines degrees of Life. It explains 
a widening environment. It unfolds the rela- 
tion between a widening environment and 
increasing complexity in organisms. And if 
it has no absolute contribution to the content 
of Religion its analogies are not limited to a 
point. It yields to Immortality, and this is the 
most that Science can do in any case, the broad 
framework for a doctrine. 

The further definition, moreover, of this cor-, 
respondence as knowing is in the highest 
degree significant. Is not this the precise 
quality in an Eternal correspondence which 
the analogies of Science would prepare us to 
look for? Longevity is associated with com- 
plexit3^ And complexity in organisms is man- 
ifested by the successive addition of corres- 
pondences, each richer and larger than those 
which have gone before. The differentiation, 
therefore, of the spiritual organism ought to 
be signalized by the addition of the highest 



218 ETERNAL LIFE. 

possible correspondence. It is not essential to 
the idea that the 'correspondence should be 
altogether novel : it is necessary rather that it 
should not. An altogether new correspondence 
^appearing suddenly without shadowor prophecy 
Nvoxild be a violation of continuity. What we 
should expect would be something new, and 
yet something that we were already prepared 
for. We should look for a further develop- 
ment in harmony with current developments; 
the extension of the last and highest corres- 
pondence in a new and higher direction. And 
this is exactly what we have. In the world 
with which biology deals, Evolution culminates 
in Knowledge. 

At whatever point in the zoological scale 
this correspondence, or set of correspondences, 
begins, it is certain there is nothing higher. 
In its stunted infancy merely, when we meet 
with its rudest beginnings in animal intelli- 
gence, it is a thing so wonderful, as to strike 
every thoughtful and reverent observer with 
awe. Even among the invertebrates so mar- 
vellously are these or kindred powers dis- 
played, that naturalists do not hesitate now, 
on the ground of intelligence at least, to class- 
ify some of the humblest creatures next to man 
himself.* Nothing in nature, indeed, is so 
unlike the rest of .nature, so prophetic of what 
is beyond it, so supernatural. And as mani- 
fested in Man who crowns creation with his all 
embracing consciousness, there is but one word 
to describe his knowledge: it is Divine. If 

♦Vide Sir John Lubbock's "Ants, Bees^ and Wasps," pp. 1-181. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 219 

then from this point there is to be any further 
Evolution, this surely must be the correspond- 
ence in which it shall take place? This corres- 
pondence is great enough to demand develop- 
ment; and yet it is little enough to need it. 
The magnificence of what it has achieved 
relatively, is the pledge of the possibility of 
more ; the insignificance of its conquest abso- 
lutely involves the probability of still richer 
triumphs. If anything, in short, in humanity 
is to go on it must be this. Other correspond- 
ences may continue likewise ; others, again, we 
can well afford to leave behind. But this can- 
not cease. This correspondence — or this set of 
correspondences, for it is very complex — is it 
not that to which men with one consent would 
attach Eternal Life? Is there anything else 
^o which they would attach it? Is anything 
better conceivable, anything worthier, fuller, 
nobler, anything which would represent a 
higher form of Evolution or offer a more per- 
fect ideal for an Eternal Life? 

But these are questions of quality; and the 
moment we pass from quantity to quality we 
leave Science behind. In the vocabulary of 
Science, Eternity is only the fraction of a 
word. It means mere everlastingness. To 
Religion, on the other hand. Eternity has little 
to do with time. To correspond with the God 
of Science, the Eternal Unknowable, would be 
everlasting existence; to correspond with *'the 
true God and Jesus Christ," is Eternal Life. 
The quality of the Eternal Life alone makes 
the heaven; mere everlastingness might be 



220 ETERNAL LIFE. 

no boon. Even the brief span of the temporal 
life is too long for those who spend its years in 
sorrow. Time itself, let alone Eternity, is all 
but excruciating to Doubt. And many besides 
Schopenhauer have secretly regarded conscious- 
ness as the hideous mistake and malady of 
Nature. Therefore we must not only have 
quantity of years, to speak in the language of 
the present, but quality of correspondence. 
When we leave Science behind, this corres- 
pondence also receives a higher name. It 
becomes communion. Other names there are 
for it, religious and theological. It may be 
included in a general expression. Faith ; or we 
may call it by a personal and specific term, 
Love. For the knowing of a Whole so great 
involves the co-operation of many parts. 

Communion with God — can it be demon- 
strated in terms of Science that this is a cor- 
respondence which will never break? We do 
not appeal to Science for such a testimony. 
We have asked for its conception of an Eternal 
Life; and we have received for answer that 
Eternal Life would consist in a correspondence 
which should never cease, with an Environ- 
ment which should never pass away. And j^-et 
what would Science demand of a perfect cor- 
respondence that is not met by this, the know- 
ing of God? There is no other correspondence 
which could satisfy one at least of the condi- 
tions. Not one could be named which would . 
not bear on the face of it the mark and pledge 
of its mortality. But this, to know God, stands 
alone. To know God, to be linked with God, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 221 

to be linked with Eternity — if this is not the 
** eternal existence" of biology what can more 
nearly approach it? And yet we are still a 
g-reat way off — to establish a communication 
with the Eternal is not to secure Eternal Life. 
It must be assumed that the communication 
could be sustained. And to assume this would 
be to beg the question. So that we have still 
to prove Eternal Life. But let it be again 
repeated, we are not here seeking proofs. We 
are seeking light. We are merely reconnoiter- 
ing from the furthest promontory of Science 
if so be that through the haze we may discern 
the outline of a distant coast and come to some 
conclusion as to the possibility of landing. 

But, it may be replied, it is not open to any 
one handling the question of Immortality from 
the side of Science to remain neutral as to the 
question of fact. It is not enough to announce 
that he has no addition to make to the positive 
argument. This may be permitted with refer- 
ence to other points of contact between Science 
and Religion, but not with this. We are told 
this question is settled — that there is no positive 
side. Science meets the entire conception of 
immortality with a direct negative. In the 
face of a powerful concensus against even the 
possibility of a Future Life, to content oneself 
with saying that Science pretended to no argu- 
ment in favor of it would be at once imperti- 
nent and dishonest. We m^ust therefore devote 
ourselves for a moment to the question of pos- 
sibility. 

The problem is, with a material body and a 



222 ETERNAL LIFE. 

rnental organization inseparably connected 
with it, to bridge the grave. Emotion, voli- 
tion, thought itself, are functions of the brain. 
When the brain is impaired, they are impaired. 
When the brain is not, they are not. Every- 
thing ceases with the dissolution of the mate- 
rial fabric; muscular activity and mental activ- 
ity perish alike. With the pronounced positive 
statements on this point from many depart- 
ments of modern Science we are all familiar. 
The fatal verdict is recorded by a hundred 
hands and with scarcely a shadow of qualifica- 
tion. *' Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled 
to reject the idea of an individual immortality 
and of a personal continuance after death. 
With the decay and dissolution of its material 
substratum, through which alone it has 
acquired a conscious existence and become a 
person, and upon which it was dependent, the 
spirit must cease to exist."* To the same 
effect Vogt: ** Physiology decides definitely 
and catagorically against individual immortal- 
ity, as against any special existence of the 
soul. The soul does not enter the foetus like 
the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a 
product of the development of the brain, just 
as muscular activity is a product of muscular 
development, and secretion a product of gland- 
ular development." After a careful review of 
the position of recent Science with regard to 
the whole doctrine, Mr. Graham sums up thus: 
**Such is the argument of Science, seemingly 
decisive against a future life. As we listen to 

"Buchner: ''Force and Matter," 3d. Ed., p. 232. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 223 

her array of syllogisms, our hearts die within 
us. The hopes of men, placed in one scale to 
be weighed, seem to fly up against the massive 
weight of her evidence, placed in the other. 
It seems as if all our arguments were vain and 
unsubstantial, as if our future expectations 
were the foolish dreams of children, as if there 
could not be any other possible verdict arrived 
at upon the evidence brought forward."* 

Can we go on in the teeth of so real an 
obstruction? Has not our own weapon turned 
against us, Science abolishing with authorita- 
tive hand the very truth we are asking it to 
define? 

What the philosopher has to throw into the 
other scale can be easily indicated. Generally 
speaking, he demurs to the dogmatism of the 
conclusion. That mind and brain react, that 
the mental and the physiological processes are 
related, and very intimately related, is beyond 
controversy. But how they are related, he 
submits, is still altogether unknown. The cor- 
relation of mind and brain do not involve their 
identity. And not a few authorities accord- 
ingly have consistently hesitated to draw any 
conclusion at all. Even Buchner's statement 
turns out, on close examination, to be tenta- 
tive in the extreme. In prefacing his chapter 
on Personal Continuance, after a single sen- 
tence on the dependence of the soul and its 
manifestations upon a material substratum, he 
remarks, "Though we are unable to form a 
definite idea as to the how of this connection, 

* "The Creed of Science," p. 169. 



?24 ETERNAL LIFE. 

we are still by these facts justified in asserting, 
that the mode of this connection renders it 
apparently impossible that they should con- 
tinue to exist separately."* There is, there- 
fore, a flaw at this point in the argument for 
materialism. It may not help the spiritualist 
in the least degree positively. He may be as 
far as ever from a theory of how consciousness 
could continue without the material tissue. 
But this contention secures for him the right 
of speculation. The path beyond may lie in 
hopeless gloom ; but it is not barred. He may 
bring forward his theory if he will. And this is 
something. For a permission to go on is often 
the most that Science can grant to Religion. 

Men have taken advantage of this loop-hole 
in various ways. And though it cannot be 
said that these speculations offer us more than a 
probability, this is still enough to combine with 
the deep-seated expectation in the bosom of 
mankind and give fresh lustre to the hope of a 
future life. Whether we find relief in the the- 
ory of a simple dualism ; whether with Ulrici 
we further define the soul as an invisible en- 
swathement of the body, material yet non- 
atomic : whether, with the ' * Unseen Universe, ' ' 
we are helped by the spectacle of known forms 
of matter shading off into an ever-growing 
subtility, mobility, and immateriality; or 
whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as 
**the ordered unity of many elements," it is 
certain that shapes can be given to the concep- 
tion of a correspondence which shall bridge the 

* "Force and Matter," p. 231. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 225 

grave such as to satisfy minds too much accus- 
tomed to weigh evidence to put themselves off 
with fancies. 

But whether the possibilities of physiology 
or the theories of philosophy do or do not sub- 
stantially assist us in realizing Immortality, is 
to Religion, to Religion at least regarded from 
the present point of view, of inferior moment. 
The fact of Immortality rests for us on a differ- 
ent basis. Probably, indeed, after all, the 
Christian philosopher never engaged himself 
in a more superfluous task than in seeking 
along physiological lines to find room for a 
soul. The theory of Christianity has only to 
be fairly stated to make manifest its thorough 
independence of all the usual speculations on 
Immortality. The theory is not that thought, 
volition, or emotion, as such are to survive the 
grave. The difficulty of holding a doctrine in 
this form, in spite of what has been advanced 
to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and wishes 
of mankind, in spite of all the scientific and 
philosophical attempts to make it tenable, is 
still profound. No secular theory of personal 
continuance, as even Butler acknowledged, 
does not equally demand the eternity of the 
brute. No secular theory defines the point in 
the chain of Evolution at which organisms 
became endowed with Immortality. No secular 
theory explains the condition of the endow- 
ment, nor indicates its goal. And if we have 
nothing more to fan hope than the unexplored 
mystery of the whole region, or the unknown 
remainders among the potencies of Life, then, 

15 Natural Law 



226 ETERNAL LIFE. 

as those who have ''hope only in this world/' 
we are ''of all men the most miserable/* 

When we turn, on the other hand, to the 
doctrine as it came from the lips of Christ, we 
find ourselves in an entirely different region. 
He makes no attempt to project the material 
into the immaterial. The old elements, how- 
ever refined and subtile as to their matter, are 
not in themselves to inherit the Kingdom of 
God. That which is flesh is flesh. Instead of 
attaching Immortality to the natural organism, 
He introduces a new and original factor which 
none of the secular, and few even of the theo- 
logical theories, seem to take sufficiently into 
account. To Christianity, "he that hath the 
Son of God hath Life, and he that hath not the 
Son hath not Life.*' This, as we take it, de- 
fines the correspondence which is to bridge the 
grave. This is the clue to the nature of the 
Life that lies at the back of the spiritual organ- 
ism. And this is the true solution of the mys- 
tery of Eternal Life. 

There lies a something at the back of the 
correspondences of the spiritual organisms — 
just as there lies a something at the back of the 
natural correspondences. To say that Life is 
a correspondence is only to express the partial 
truth. There is something behind. Life man- 
ifests itself in correspondences. But what de- 
termines them? The organism exhibits a vari- 
ety of correspondences. What organizes them? 
As in the natural, so in the spiritual, there is a 
Principle of Life. We cannot get rid of that 
term. However clumsy, however provisional, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 227 

however much a mere cloak for ignorance, Sci- 
ence as yet is unable to dispense with the idea 
of a Principle of Life. We must work with 
the word till we get a better. Now that which 
determines the correspondence of the spiritual 
organism is a Principle of Spiritual Life. It is 
a new and Divine Possession. He that hath 
the Son hath Life; conversely, he that hath 
Life hath the Son. And this indicates at once 
the quality and the quantity of the correspond- 
ence which is to bridge the grave. He that 
hath Life hath the Son. He possesses the 
Spirit of a son. That spirit is, so to speak, 
organized within him by the Son. It is the 
manifestation of the new nature — of which 
more anon. The fact to note at present is that 
this is not an organic correspondence, but a 
spiritual correspondence. It comes not from 
generation, but from regeneration. The rela- 
tion between the spiritual man and his Envi- 
ronment is in theological language, a filial re- 
lation. With the new Spirit, the filial corres- 
pondence, he knows the Father — and this is 
Life Eternal. This is not only the real rela- 
tion, but the only possible relation: *' Neither 
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, 
and he to whomsoever the Son w^ill reveal 
Him.** And this on purely natural grounds. 
It takes the Divine to know the Divine — but 
in no more mysterious sense than it takes the 
human to understand the human. The anal- 
ogy, indeed, for the whole field here has been 
finely expressed already by Paul: **What 
man,*' he asks, ** knoweth the things of a man, 



228 ETERNAL LIFE. 

save the spirit of man which is in him? even so 
the things of God knoweth no man, but the 
Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the 
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of 
God: that we might know the things that are 
freely given to us of God/'* 

It were idle, such being the quality of the 
new relation, to add that this also contains the 
guarantee of its eternity. Here at last is a 
correspondence which will never cease. Its 
powers in bridging the grave have been tried. 
The correspondence of the spiritual man pos- 
sesses the supernatural virtues of the Resur- 
rection and the Life. It is known by formeri 
experiment to have survived the '* changes in 
the physical state of the environment," and 
those ''mechanical actions" and ''variations of 
available food," which Mr. Herbert Spencer 
tells us are "liable to stop the processes going 
on in the organism." In short, this is a corres- 
pondence which at once satisfies the demands 
of Science and Religion. In mere quantity it 
is different from every other correspondence 
known. Setting aside everything else in Re- 
ligion, everything adventitious, local and pro- 
visional; dissecting in to the bone and marrow 
we find this — a correspondence which can 
never break with an Environment which can 
never change. Here is a relation established 
with Eternity. The passing years lay no lim- 
iting hand on it. Corruption injures it not. It 
survives Death. It, and it only, will stretch 
beyond the grave and be found inviolate — 

* 1 Cor. ii. 11, 12. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 229 

"'When the moon is old, 
And the stars are cold, 
And the books of the Judgment-day unfold." 

The misgiving which will creep sometimes 
over the brightest faith has already received 
its expression and its rebuke: ''Who shall 
separate ns from the love of Christ? Shall 
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or fam- 
ine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Shall 
these ''changes in the physical state of the 
environment" which threaten death to the nat- 
ural man destroy the spiritual? Shall death, 
or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, 
arrest or tamper with his eternal correspond- 
ences? "Nay, in all these things we are more 
than conquerors through Him that loved us. 
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor 
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."* 

It may seem an objection to some that the 
"perfect correspondence" should come to man 
in so extraordinary a way. The earlier stages 
in the doctrine are promising enough ; they are 
entirely in line with Nature. And if Nature 
has also furnished the "perfect correspond- 
ence" demanded for an Eternal Life, the posi- 
tion might be unassailable. But this sudden 
reference to a something outside the natural 
Environment destroys the continuity, and dis- 
covers a permanent weakness in the whole 

* Rom. viii. 



230 ETERNAL LIFE. 

theory? To which there is a two-fold reply. 
In the first place, to go outside what we call 
Nature is not to go outside Environment. 
Nature, the natural Environment, is only a 
part of Environment. There is another large 
part which, though some profess to have no 
correspondence with it, is not on that account 
unreal, or even unnatural. The mental and 
moral world is unknown to the plant. But it 
is real. It cannot be affirmed either that it is 
unnatural to the plant ; although it might be 
said that from the point of view of the Vege- 
table Kingdom it was supernatural. Things are 
natural or supernatural simply according to 
where one stands. Man is supernatural to the 
mineral; God is supernatural to the man. 
When a mineral is seized upon by the living 
plant and elevated to the organic kingdom, no 
trespass against Nature is committed. It 
merely enters a larger Environment, which 
before was supernatural to it, but which now 
is entirely natural When the heart of a man, 
again, is seized upon by the quickening Spirit 
of God, no further violence is done to natural 
law. It is another case of the inorganic, so 
to speak, passing into the organic. 

But, in the second place, it is complained as 
if it were an enormity in itself that the spirit- 
ual correspondence should be furnished from 
the spiritual world. And to this the answer 
lies in the sarne direction. Correspondence in 
any case is the gift of Environment. The 
natural Environment gives men their natural 
faculties ; the spiritual affords them their spirit- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 231 

tial faculties. It is natural for the spiritual 
Environment to supply the spiritual faculties ; 
it would be quite unnatural for the natural 
Environment to do it. The natural law of Bio- 
genesis forbids it ; the moral fact that the finite 
cannot comprehend the Infinite is against it; 
the spiritual principle that flesh and blood can- 
not inherit the kingdom of God renders it ab- 
surd. Not, however, that the spiritual facul- 
ties are, as it were, manufactured in the spirit- 
ual world and supplied ready-made to the 
spiritual organism — forced upon it as an exter- 
nal equipment This certainly is not involved 
in saying that the spiritual faculties are fur- 
nished by the spiritual world. Organisms are 
not added to by accretion, as in the case of 
minerals, but by growth. And the spiritual 
faculties are organized in the spiritual proto- 
plasm of the soul, just as other faculties are 
organized in the protoplasm of the body. The 
plant is made of materials which have once 
been inorganic. An organizing principle not 
belonging to their kingdom lays hold of them 
and elaborates them until they have correspond- 
ence with the kingdom to which the organiziing 
principle belonged. The original organizing 
principle, if it can be called by this name, was 
Crystallization; so that we have now a dis- 
tinctly foreign power organizing in totally 
new and higher directions. In the spiritual 
world, similarly, we find an organizing prin- 
ciple at work among the materials of the 
c ^ganic kingdom, performing a further miracle, 
but not a different kind of miracle, producing 



232 ETERNAL LIFE. 

organizations of a novel kind, but not by a novel 
method. The second process, in fact, is simply 
what an enlightened evolutionist would have 
expected from the first. It marks the natural 
and legitimate progress of the development. 
And this in the line of the true Evolution — not 
the linear Evolution, which would look for the 
development of the natural man through 
powers already inherent, as if one were to look 
to Crystallization to accomplish the develop- 
ment of the mineral into the plant, — but that 
larger form of Evolution which includes among 
its factors the double Law of Biogenesis and 
the immense further truth that this involves. 

What is further included in this complex cor- 
respondence we shall have opportunity to illus- 
trate afterwards.'* * Meantime let it be noted 
on what the Christian argument for Immor- 
tality really rests. It stands upon the pedestal 
on which the theologian rests the whole of his- 
torical Christianity — the Resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. 

It ought to be placed in the forefront of all 
Christian teaching that Christ's mission on 
earth was to give men Life. *'I am come,'* 
He said, **thatye might have Life, and that ye 
might have it more abundantly." And that 
He meant literal Life, literal spiritual and 
Eternal Life, is clear from the whole course of 
His teaching and acting. To impose a meta- 
phorical meaning on the commonest word of 
the New Testament is to violate every canon 
of interpretation, and at the same time to 

* Vide "Conformity to Type," page 279. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 233 

charge the greatest of teachers with persis- 
tently mystifying His hearers by an unusual 
use of so exact a vehicle for expressing definite 
thought as the Greek language, and that on the 
most momentous subject of which He ever 
spoke to men. It is a canon of interpretation, 
according to Alford, that *'a figurative sense 
of words is never admissible except when re- 
quired by the context. " The context, in most 
cases, is not only directly unfavorable to a 
figurative meaning, but in innumerable in- 
stances in Christ's teaching Life is broadly con- 
trasted with Death. In the teaching of the 
apostles, again, we find that, without excep- 
tion, they accepted the term in its simple lit- 
eral sense. Reuss defines the apostolic belief 
with his usual impartiality when — and the quo- 
tation is doubly pertinent here — he discovers in 
the apostle's conception of Life, first, **the idea 
of a real existence, an existence such as is 
proper to God and to the Word ; an imperish- 
able existence — that is to say, not subject to 
the vicissitudes and imperfections of the finite 
world. This primary idea is repeatedly ex- 
pressed, at least in a negative form ; it leads to 
a doctrine of immortality, or, to speak more 
correctly, of life, far surpassing any that had 
been expressed in the formulas of the current 
philosophy or theology, and resting upon pre- 
mises and conceptions altogether different. In 
fact, it can dispense both with the philoso- 
phical thesis of the immateriality or indestruc- 
tibilityof the human soul, and with the theo 
logical thesis of a miraculous corporeal recon- 

16 Natural Law 



234 ETERNAL LIFE. 

struction of our person; thesis, the first of 
which is altogether foreign to the religion of 
the Bible, and the second absolutely opposed 
to reason/' Second, ''the idea of life, as it is 
conceived in this system, implies the idea of a 
power, an operation, a communication, since 
this life no longer remains, so to speak, latent 
or passive in God and in the Word, but through 
them reaches the believer. It is not a mental 
somnolent thing; it is not a plant without 
fruit; it is a germ which is to find fullest de- 
velopment." * 

If we are asked to define more clearly what 
is meant by this mysterious endowment of 
Life, we again hand over the difficulty to Sci- 
ence. When Science can define the Natural 
Life and the Physical Force we may hope for 
further clearness on the nature and action of 
the Spiritual Powers. The effort to detect 
the living Spirit must be at least as idle as the 
attempt to subject protoplasm to microscopic 
examination in the hope of discovering Life. 
We are warned, also, not to expect too much. 
''Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or 
whither it goeth. " This being its quality, 
when the Spiritual Life is discovered in the 
laboratory it will possibly be time to give it up 
altogether. It may say, as Socrates of his soul, 
"You may bury me — if you can catch me." 

Science never corroborates a spiritual truth 
without illuminating it. The threshold of 
Eternity is a place where many shadows meet. 



* "History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age," vol. 
ii. p. 496. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 235 

And the light of Science here, where every- 
thing is so dark, is welcome a thousand times. 
Many men would be religious if they knew 
where to begin ; many would be more religious 
if they were sure where it would end. It is 
not indifference that keeps some men from 
God, but ignorance. *'Good Master, what 
must I do to inherit Eternal Life?" is still the 
deepest question of the age. What is Reli- 
gion? What am I to believe? What seek with 
all my heart and soul and mind? — this is the 
imperious question sent up to consciousness 
from the depths to being in all earnest hours ; 
sent down again, alas, with many of us, time 
after time, unanswered. Into all our thought 
and work and reading this question pursues us. 
But the theories are rejected one by one; the 
great books are returned sadly to their shelves, 
the years pass, and the problem remains un- 
solved. The confusion of tongues here is ter- 
rible. Every day a new authority announces 
himself. Poets, philosophers, preachers try 
their hand on us in turn. New prophets arise, 
and beseech us for our soul's sake to give ear 
to them — at last in an hour of inspiration they 
have discovered the final truth. Yet the doc- 
trine of yesterday is challenged by a fresh phi- 
losophy to-day; and the creed of to-day will 
fall in turn before the criticism of to-morrow. 
Increase of knowledge increaseth sorrow. And 
at length the conflicting truths, like the beams 
of light in the laboratory experiment, combine 
in the mind to make total darkness. 

But here are two outstandino^ authorities 



236 ETERNAL LIFE. 

agreed — not men, not philosphers, not creeds. 
Here is the voice of God and the voice of 
Nature. I cannot be wrong if I listen to 
them. Sometimes when uncertain of a voice 
from its very loudness, we catch the missing 
syllable in the echo. In God and Nature we 
have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I 
am assured. My sense of hearing does not be- 
tray me twice. I recognize the Voice in the 
Echo, the Echo makes me certain of the Voice ; 
I listen and I know. The question of a Future 
Life is a biological question. Nature may be 
silent on other problems of Religion ; but here 
she has a right to speak. The whole confusion 
around the doctrine of Eternal Life has arisen 
from making it a question of Philosophy. We 
shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any specula- 
tion of Philosophy; the ethical relations here 
especially are intimate and real. But in the 
first instance Eternal Life, as a question of 
Life, is a problem for Biology. The soul is a 
living organism. And for any question as to 
the soul's Life we must appeal to Life-science. 
And what does the Life-science teach? That if 
I am to inherit Eternal Life, I must cultivate 
a correspondence with the Eternal. This is a 
simple proposition, for Nature is always sim- 
ple. I take this proposition, and leaving Na- 
ture, proceed to fill it in. I search everywhere 
for a clue to the Eternal. I ransack literature 
for a definition of a correspondence between 
man and God. Obviously that can only come 
from one source. And the analogies of Sci- 
ence permit us to ^pply to it. All knowledge 



ETERNAL LIFE. 237 

lies in Environment. When I want to know 
about minerals I go to minerals. When I want 
to know about flowers I go to flowers. And 
they tell me. In their own way they speak to 
me, each in its own way, and each for itself — 
not the mineral for the flower, which is impos- 
sible, nor the flower for the mineral, which is 
also impossible. So if I want to know about 
Man, I go to his part of the Environment. 
And he tells me about himself , not as the plant 
or the mineral, for he is neither, but in his own 
way. And if I want to know about God, I go 
to his part of the Environment, And He tells 
me about Himself, not as a Man, for He is not 
Man, but in His own way. And just as natu- 
rally as the flower and the mineral and the 
Man, each in their own way, tell me about 
themselves, He tells me about Himself. He 
very strangely condescends indeed in making 
things plain to me, actually assuming for a 
time the Form of a Man that I at my poor level 
may better see Him. This is my opportunity 
to know Him. This incarnation is God mak- 
ing Himself accessible to human thought — God 
opening to man the possibility of correspond- 
ence through Jesus Christ. And this corre- 
spondence and this Environment are those I 
seek. He Himself assures me, "This is Life 
Eternal, that they might know Thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent. *' Do I not now discern the deeper mean- 
ing in **Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent''? 
Do I not better understand with what vision 
and rapture the profoundest of the disciples 



238 ETERNAL LIFE. 

exclaims, *'The Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding that we might know 
Him that is true"? * 

Having opened correspondence with the 
Eternal Environment, the subsequent stages 
are in the line of all other normal development. 
We have but to continue, to deepen, to extend, 
and to enrich the correspondence that has been 
begun. And we shall soon find to our surprise 
that this is accompanied by another and paral- 
lel process. The action is not all upon our side. 
The Environment also will be found to corre- 
spond. The influence of Environment is one 
of the greatest and most substantial of modern 
biological doctrines. Of the power of Environ- 
ment to form or transform organisms, of its 
ability to develop or suppress functions, of its 
potency in determining growth, and generally 
of its immense influence in Evolution, there is 
no need now to speak. But Environment is 
now acknowledged to be one of the most po- 
tent factors in the Evolution of Life. The 
influence of Environment too seems to increase 
rather than diminish as we approach the higher 
forms of being. The highest forms are the 
most mobile ; their capacity of change is the 
greatest; they are, in short, most easily acted 
on by Environment. And not only are the 
highest organisms the most mobile, but the 
highest parts of the highest organisms are more 
mobile than the lower. Environment can do 
little, comparatively, in the direction of induc- 
ing variation in the body of a child; but how 

♦ I John, V. 20. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 239 

plastic is its mind ! How infinitely sensitive is 
its soul ! How infallibly can it be turned to 
music or to dissonance by the moral harmony 
or discord of its outward lot ! How decisively 
indeed are we not all formed and moulded, 
made or unmade, by external circumstances I 
Might we not all confess with Ulysses, — 

"I am a part of all that I have met*'? 

Much more, then, shall we look for the influ- 
ence of Environment on the spiritual nature of 
him who has opened correspondence with 
God. Reaching out his eager and quickened 
faculties to the spiritual world around him, 
shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact 
with Holiness, shall he not become holy? 
Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable 
Purity, shall he miss becoming pure? Walk- 
ing with God from day to day, shall he fail to 
be taught of God? 

Growth in grace is sometimes described as a 
strange, mystical, and unintelligible process. 
It is mystical, but neither strange nor unintel- 
ligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, 
and the leading factor in sanctification is Influ- 
ence of Environment. The possibility of it 
depends upon the mobility of the organism; 
the result, on the extent and frequency of cer- 
tain correspondences. These facts insensibly 
lead on to a further suggestion. Is it not pos- 
sible that these biological truths may carry 
with them the clue to a still profounder phi- 
losophy — even that of Regeneration? 

Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of 



240 ETERNAL LIFE. 

environment certain aquatic animals have be- 
come adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. 
Breathing normally by gills, as the result and 
reward of a continued effort carried on from 
generation to generation to inspire the air of 
heaven direct, they have slowly acquired the 
lung-function. In the young organism, true 
to the ancestral type, the gill still persists — as 
in the tadpole of the common frog. But as 
maturity approaches the true lung appears; the 
gill gradually transfers its task to the higher 
organ. It then becomes a trophied and disap- 
pears, and finally respiration in the adult is 
conducted by lungs alone.* We may be far, in 
the meantime, from saying that this is proved. 
It is for those who accept it to deny the justice 
of the spiritual analogy. Is religion to them 
unscientific in its doctrine of Regeneration? 
Will the evolutionist who admits the regenera- 
tion of the frog under the modifying influence 
of a continued correspondence with a new en- 
vironment, care to question the possibility of 
the soul acquiring such a faculty as that of 
Prayer, the marvelous breathing-function of 
the new creature, when in contact with the at- 
mosphere of a besetting God? Is the change 
from the earthly to the heavenly more mysteri- 
ous than the change from the aquatic to the 
terrestrial mode of life? Is Evolution to stop 
with the organic? If it be objected that it has 
taken ages to perfect the function in the 

* Vide also the remarkable experiments of Fraulein v. 
Chauvin on the Transformation of the Mexican Axolotl into 
Amblystoms.— Weismann's "Studies in the Theory of Descent, 
vol. ii. pt. iii. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 241 

batrachian, the reply is, that it will take ages 
to perfect the function in the Christian. For 
every thousand years the natural evolution will 
allow for the development of its organism, the 
Higher Biology will grant its product millions. 
We have, indeed, spoken of the spiritual cor- 
respondence as already perfect — but it is per- 
fect only as the bud is perfect. *'It doth not 
yet appear what it shall be, ' ' any more than it 
appeared a million years ago what the evolv- 
ing batrahian would be. 

BviX to return. We have been dealing with 
the scientific aspects of communion with God. 
Insensibly, from quantity we have been led to 
speak of quality. And enough has now been 
advanced to indicate generally the nature of 
that correspondence with which is necessarily 
associated Eternal Life. There remains but 
one or two details to which we must lastly, and 
very briefly, address ourselves. 

The quality of everlastingness belongs, as 
we have seen, to a single correspondence, or 
rather to a single set of correspondences. But 
it is apparent that before this correspondence 
can take full and final effect a further process 
is necessary. By some means it must be sep- 
arated from all the other correspondences of the 
organism which do not share its peculiar qual- 
ity. In this life it is restrained by these othef 
correspondences. They may contribute to it, 
or hinder it; but they are essentially of a dif- 
ferent order. They belong not to Eternity, 
but to Time, and to this present world ; and, 
unless some provision is made for dealing with 

16 



242 ETERNAL LIFE. 

them, they will detain the aspirings organism 
in this present world till Time is ended. Of 
course, in a sense, all that belongs to Time 
belongs also to Eternity ; but these lower corre- 
spondences are in their nature unfitted for an 
Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in 
their relation to their Environment, they would 
still not be Eternal. However opposed, appar- 
ently, to the scientific definition of Eternal 
Life, it is yet true that perfect correspondence 
with Environment is not Eternal Life. A very' 
important word in the complete definition is, 
in this sentence, omitted. On that word it has 
not been necessary hitherto, and for obvious 
reasons to place any emphasis, but when we 
come to deal with false pretenders to Immor- 
tality we must return to it. Were the defini- 
tion complete as it stands, it might, with the 
permission of the psycho-physiologist, guaran- 
tee the Immortality of every living thing. In 
the dog, for instance, the material framework 
giving way at death might leave the released 
canine spirits still free to inhabit the old En- 
vironment. And so with every creature which 
had ever established a conscious relation with 
surrounding things. Now the difficulty in 
framing a theory of Eternal Life has been to 
construct one which will exclude the brute cre- 
ation, drawing the line rigidly at man, or at 
least somewhere within the human race. Not 
that we need object to the Immortality of the 
dog, or of the whole inferior creation. Nor 
that we need refuse a place to any intelligible 
speculation which would people the earth to- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 243 

day with the invisible forms of all things that 
have ever lived. Only we still insist that this 
is not Eternal Life. And why? Because their 
Environment is not Eternal. Their corre- 
spondence, however firmly established, is estab- 
lished with that which shall pass away. An 
Eternal Life demands an Eternal Environ- 
ment. 

The demand for a perfect Environment as 
well as for a perfect correspondence is less 
clear in Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition than 
it might be. But it is an essential factor. An 
organism might remain true to its Environ- 
ment, but what if the Environment played it 
false? If the organism possessed the power to 
change, it could adapt itself to successive 
changes in the Environment. And if this were 
guaranteed we should also have the conditions 
for Eternal Life fulfilled. But what if the 
Environment passed away altogether? What 
if the earth swept suddenly into the sun? This 
is a change of Environment against which 
there could be no precaution and for which 
there could be as little provision. With a 
changing Environment even, there must 
always remain the dread and possibility of a 
falling out of correspondence. At the best, 
Life would be uncertain. But with a change- 
less Environment — such as that possessed by 
the spiritual organism — the perpetuity of the 
correspondence, so far as the external relation 
is concerned, is guaranteed. This quality of 
permanence in the Environment distinguishes 
the religious relation from every other. Why 



244 ETERNAL LIFE. 

should not the musician's life be an Eternal 
Life? Because, for one thing, the musical 
world, the Environment with which he corre- 
sponds, is not eternal. Even if his correspond- 
ence in itself could last eternally, the environ- 
ing material things with which he corresponds 
must pass away. His soul might last forever 
— but not his violin. So the man of the world 
might last forever— -but not the world. His 
Environment is not eternal ; nor are even his 
correspondences — the world passeth away and 
the lust thereof. 

We find then that man, or the spiritual man, 
is equipped with two sets of correspondences. 
One set possesses the quality of everlasting- 
ness, the other is temporal. But unless these 
are separated by some means the temporal will 
continue to impair and hinder the eternal. 
The final preparation, therefore, for the inher- 
iting of Eternal Life must consist in the aban- 
donment of the non-eternal elements. These 
must be unloosed and dissociated from the 
higher elements. And this is effected by a 
closing catastrophe — Death. 

Death ensues because certain relations in the 
organism are not adjusted to certain relations 
in the Environment. There will come a time 
in each history when the imperfect correspond- 
ences of the organism will betray themselves 
by a failure to compass some necessary adjust- 
ment. This is why Death is associated with 
Imperfection. Death is the necessary result 
of Imperfection, and the necessary end of it. 
Imperfect correspondence gives imperfect and 



ETERNAL LIFE. 245 

uncertain Life. ''Perfect correspondence,*' 
on the other hand, according* to Mr, Herbert 
Spencer, would be ''perfect life." To abolish 
Death, therefore, all that would be necessary 
would be to abolish Imperfection. But it is 
the claim of Christianity that it can abolish 
Death. And it is significant to notice that 
it does so by meeting this very demand of 
Science — it abolishes Imperfection. 

The part of the organism which begins to 
get out of correspondence with the Organic 
Environment is the only part which is in vital 
correspondence with it. ■ Though a fatal dis- 
advantage to the natural man to be thrown out 
of correspondence with this Environment, it is 
of inestimable importance to the spiritual 
man. For so long as it is maintained the way 
is barred for a further Evolution. And hence 
the condition necessary for the further Evolu- 
tion is that the spiritual be released from the 
natural. That is to say, the condition of the 
further Evolution is Death. Mors janua VitcB, 
therefore, becomes a scientific formula. Death, 
being the final sifting of all the correspond- 
ences, is the indispensable factor of the higher 
Life. In the language of Science, not less 
than of Scripture, "To die is gain.'* 

The sifting of the correspondences is done 
by Nature. This is its last and greatest con- 
tribution to mankind. Over the mouth of the 
grave the perfect and the imperfect submit to 
their final separation. Each goes to its own — 



246 ETERNAL LIFE. 

earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, 
Spirit to Spirit. *'The dust shall return -to the 
earth as it was; and the Spirit shall return 
unto God who gave it. ' ' 



ENVIRONMENT. 



247 



**When I talked with an ardent missionary and 
pointed out to him that his creed found no support in 
my experience, he replied: 'It is not so in your experi- 
ence, but is so in the other world.' I answer: 'Other 
world ! There is no other world. God is one and om- 
nipresent ; here or nowhere is the whole fact. ' ' ' 

Emerson. * 



248 



ENVIRONMENT. 

* 'Ye are complete in Him." — Paul. 

/'Whatever amount of power an organism expends 
in any shape is the correlate and equivalent of a power 
that was taken into it from without. ' ' — Herbert Spencer. 

Students of Biography will observe that in 
all well-written Lives attention is concentrated 
for the first few chapters upon two points. 
We are first introduced to the family to which 
the subject of memoir belonged. The grand- 
parents, or even the more remote ancestors are 
briefly sketched and their chief characteristics 
brought prominently into view. Then the 
parents themselves are photographed in detail. 
Their appearance and physique, their charac- 
ter, their disposition, their mental qualities, 
are set before us in a critical analysis. And 
finally we are asked to observe how much the 
father and the mother respectively have trans- 
mitted of their peculiar nature to their off- 
spring. How faithfully the ancestral lines 
have met in the latest product, how mysteri- 
ously the joint characteristics of body and 
mind have blended, and how unexpected yet 
how entirely natural a recombination is the re- 
sult — these points are elaborated with cumula- 
tive effect until we realize at last how little we 

249 



*250 ENVIRONMENT. 

are dealing with an independent unit, how 
much with a survival and reorganization of 
what seemed buried in the grave. 

In the second place, we are invited to con- 
sider more external influences — schools and 
schoolmasters, neighbors, home, pecuniary cir- 
cumstances, scenery, and, by and by, the re- 
ligious and political atmosphere of the time. 
These also we are assured have played their 
part in making the individual what he is. 
We can estimate these early influences in any 
particular case with but small imagination if 
we fail to see how powerfully they also have 
moulded mind and character, and in • what 
subtle ways they have determined the course 
of the future life. 

This two-fold relation of the individual, first, 
to his parents, and second, to his circum- 
stances, is not peculiar to human beings., 
These two factors are responsible for making 
all living organisms what they are. When a 
naturalist attempts to unfold the life-history of 
any animal, he proceeds precisely on these 
same lines. Biography is really a branch of 
Natural History; and the biographer who dis- 
cusses his hero as the resultant of these two 
tendencies, follows the scientific method as rig- 
idly as Mr. .Darwin in studying ** Animals and 
Plants under Domestication.'* 

Mr. Darwin, following Weismann, long ago 
pointed out that there are two main factors in 
all Evolution — the nature of the organism and 
the nature of the conditions. We have chosen 
our illustration from the highest or human 



ENVIRONMENT. 251 

Species in order to define the meaning of these 
factors in the clearest way ; but it must be re- 
membered that the development of man under 
these directive influences is essentially the 
same as that of any other organism in the 
hands of Nature. We are dealing therefore ' 
with universal Law. It will still further serve 
to complete the conception of the general prin- 
ciple if we now substitute for the casual phrases 
by which the factors have been described, the 
more accurate terminology of Science. Thus 
what Biography describes as parental influ- ' 
ences, Biology would speak of as Heredity ;« 
and all that is involved in the second factor — 
the action of external circumstances and sur- 
roundings — the naturalist would include under 
the single term Environment. These two. 
Heredity and Environment, are the master- 
influences of the organic world. These have » 
made all of us what we are. These forces are 
still ceaselessly playing upon all our lives. 
And he who truly understands these influences; %^^^^ 
he who has decided how much to allow to each; , 
he who can regulate new forces as they arise, f 
or adjust them to the old, so directing them as 
at one moment to make them co-operate, at ; 
another to counteract one another, understands j 
the rationale of personal development. To ^^ 
seize continuously the opportunity of more j 
and more perfect adjustment to better and \ 
higher conditions, to balance some inward evil 
with some purer influence acting from with- 
out, in a word, to make our Environment at 
the same time that it is making us, — these are 



252 ENVIRONMENT. 

the secrets of a well-ordered and successful 
life. 

In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influ- 
ences which form and transform the soul are 
Heredity and Environment. And here espe- 
cially where all is invisible, where much that 
we feel to be real is yet so ill-defi.ned, it be- 
comes of vital practical moment to clarify the 
atmosphere as far as possible with conceptions 
borrowed from the natural life. Few things 
are less understood than the conditions of the 
spiritual life. The distressing incompetence 
of which most of us are conscious in trying to 
work out our spiritual experience is due per- 
haps less to the diseased will w^hich we com- 
monly blame for it than to imperfect know- 
ledge of the right conditions. It "does not occur 
to us how natural the spiritual is. We still 
strive for some strange transcendent thing; 
we seek to promote life by methods as unnat- 
ural as they prove unsuccessful ; and only the 
utter incomprehensibility of the whole region 
prevents us seeing fully — what we already 
half-suspect — how completely we are missing 
the road. Living in the spiritual world, never- 
theless, is just as simple as living in the natural 
world ; and it is the same kind of simplicity. 
It is the same kind of simplicity, for it is the 
same kind of world — there are not two kinds of 
worlds. The conditions of life in the one are 
the conditions of life in the other. And till 
these conditions are sensibly grasped, as the 
conditions of all life, it is impossible that the 
personal effort after the highest life should be 



ENVIRONMENT. 263 

other than a blind strng-gle carried on in fruit- 
less sorrow and humiliation. 

Of these two universal factors, Heredity and 
Environment, it is unnecessary to balance the 
relative importance here. The main influence, 
unquestionably, must be assigned to the 
former. In practice, however, and for an 
obvious reason, we are chiefly concerned with 
the latter. What Heredity has to do for us is 
determined outside ourselves. No man can «. 
select his own parents. But every man to y 
some extent can choose his own Environment. / 
His relation to it, however largely determined 
by Heredity in the first instance, is always 
open to alteration. And so great is his con- 
trol over Environment and so radical its influ- 
ence over him, that he can so direct it as either 
to undo, modify, perpetuate or intensify the 
earlier hereditary influences within certain 
limits. But the aspects of Environment which 
we have now to consider do not involve us in 
questions of such complexity. In what high 
and m.ystical sense, also. Heredity applies to 
the spiritual organism we need not just now 
inquire. In the simpler relations of the more 
external factor we shall find a large and fruit- 
ful field for study. 

The Influence of Environment may be ^ 
investigated in two main aspects. First, one 
might discuss the modern and very interesting 
question as to the power of Environment to 
induce w^hat is known to recent science as Var- 
iation. A change in the surroundings of any 
animal, it is now well-known, can so react 



254 ENVIRONMENT. 

Upon it as to cause it to change. By the 
attempt, conscious or unconscious, to adjust 
itself to the new conditions, a true physiolog- 
ical change is gradually wrought within the 
organism. Hunter, for example, in a classical 
experiment, so changed the Environment of a 
sea-gull by keeping it in captivity that it could 
only secure a grain diet. The effect was to 
modify the stomach of the bird, normally 
adapted to a fish diet, until in time it came to 
resemble in structure the gizzard of an ordi- 
nary grain-feeder such as the pigeon. Holm- 
gren again reversed this experiment by feed- 
ing pigeons for a lengthened period on a meat- 
diet, with the result that the gizzard became 
transformed into the carnivorous stomach. 
Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace mentions the case 
of a Brazilian parrot which changes its color 
from green to red or yellow when fed on the 
fat of certain fishes. Not only changes of 
food, however, but changes of climate and of 
temperature, changes in surrounding organ- 
isms, in the case of marine animals even 
changes of pressure, of ocean currents, of light, 
and many other circumstances, are known to 
exert a powerful modifying influence upon liv- 
ing organisms. These relations are still being 
worked out in many directions, but the influ- 
ence of Environment as a prime factor in Vari- 
ation is now a recognized doctrine of science.* 



*Vide Karl Semper's "The Natural Conditions of Existence 
as they affect Animal Life;" Wallace's "Tropical Nature;" 
Weismann's "Studies in the Theory of Descent;" Darwin's 
** Animals and Plants under Domestication." 



ENVIRONMENT. 255 

Even the popular mind has been struck with 
the curious adaptation of nearly all animals to 
their habitat, for example in the matter of 
color. The sandy hue of the sole and flounder, 
the white of the polar bear with its suggestion 
of Arctic snows, the stripes of the Bengal tiger 
— as if the actual reeds of its native jungle had 
nature-printed themselves on its hide ; — these 
and a hundred others which will occur to every 
one, are marked instances of adaptation to 
Environment, induced by Natural Selection or 
otherwise, for the purpose, obviously in these 
cases at least, of protection. 

To continue the investigation of the modify- 
ing action of Environment into the moral and 
spiritual spheres, would be to open a fascinat- 
ing and suggestive inquiry. One might show 
how the moral man is acted upon and changed 
continuously by the influences, secret and open, 
of his surroundings, by the tone of society, by 
the company he keeps, by his occupation, by 
the books he reads, by Nature, by all, in short, 
that constitutes the habitual atmosphere of his 
thoughts and the little world of his daily choice. 
Or one might go deeper still and prove how 
the spiritual life also is modified from outside 
sources — its health or disease, its growth or 
decay, all its changes for better or for worse 
being determined by the varying and successive 
circumstances in which the religious habits are 
cultivated. But we must rather transfer our 
attention to a second aspect of Environment, 
not perhaps so fascinating but yet moro import- 
ant. 



256 ENVIRONMENT. 

So much of the modern discussion of Envi- 
ronment revolves round the mere question of 
Variation that one is apt to overlook a previ- 
ous question. Environment as a factor in life 
is not exhausted when we have realized its 
modifying influence. Its significance is 
scarcely touched. The great function of Envi- 
ronment is not to modify but to sustain. In 
sustaining life, it is true, it modifies. But the 
latter influence is incidental, the former essen- 
tial. Our Environment is that in which we live 
and move and have our being. Without it we 
should neither live nor move nor have any 
being. In the organism lies the principle of 
life ; in the Environment are the conditions of 
life. Without the fulfilment of these condi- 
tions, which are wholly supplied by Environ- 
ment, there can be no life. And organism in 
itself is but a part. Nature is its complement. 
Alone, cut off from its surroundings, it is not. 
Alone, cut off from my surroundings, I am not 
— physically, I am not. I am, only as I am 
sustained. I continue only as I receive. My 
Environment may modify me, but it has first 
to keep me. And all the time its secret trans- 
forming power is indirectly moulding body and 
mind it is directly active in the more open task 
of ministering to my myriad wants and from 
hour to hour sustaining life itself. 

To understand the sustaining influence of 
Environment in the animal world, one has 
only to recall what the biologist terms the 
extrinsic or subsidiary conditions of vitality. 
Every living thing normally requires for its 



ENVIRONMENT. 257 

development an Environment containing air, 
light, heat, and water. In addition to these, if 
vitality is to be prolonged for any length of 
time, and if it is to be accompanied with growth 
and the expenditure of energy, there must be a 
constant supply of food. When we remember 
how indispensable food is to growth and work, 
and when we further bear in mind that the 
food-supply is solely contributed by the Envir- 
onment, we shall realize at once the meaning 
and the truth of the proposition that without 
Environment there can be no life. Seventy 
per cent, at least of the human body is made 
of pure water, the rest of gases and earths. 
These have all come from Environment. 
Through the secret pores of the skin two 
pounds of water are exhaled daily from every 
healthy adult. The supply is kept up by 
Environment. The Environment is really an 
unappropriated part of ourselves. Definite 
portions are continuously abstracted from it 
and added to the organism. And so long as 
the organism continues to grow, act, think, 
speak, work, or perform any other function 
demanding a supply of energy, there is a con- 
stant simultaneous, and proportionate drain 
upon its surroundings. 

This is a truth in the physical, and therefore 
in the spiritual, world of so great importance 
that we shall not mis-spend time if we follow 
it, for further confirmnation, into another 
department of nature. Its significance in 
Biology is self-evident ; let us appeal to Chem- 
istry. 

17 Natural Law 



258 ENVIRONMENT. 

When a piece of coal is thrown on a fire, we 
say that it will radiate into the room a certain 
quantity of heat. This heat, in the popular 
conception, is supposed to reside in the coal 
and to be set free during the process of com- 
bustion. In reality, however, the heat energy 
is only in part contained in the coal. It is con- 
tained just as truly in the coal's Environment 
— that is to say, in the oxygen of the air. The 
atoms of carbon which compose the coal have a 
powerful affinity for the oxygen of the air. 
Whenever they are made to approach within a 
certain distance of one another, by the initial 
application of heat, they rush together with 
inconceivable velocity. The heat which 
appears at this moment, comes neither from 
the carbon alone, nor from the oxygen alone. 
These two substances are really inconsum- 
able, and continue to exist, after they meet in 
a combined form, as carbonic acid gas. The 
heat is due to the energy developed by the 
chemical embrace, the precipitate rushing 
together of the molecules of -carbon and the 
molecules of oxygen. It comes, therefore, 
partly from the coal and partly from the 
Environment. Coal alone never could produce 
heat, neither alone could Environment. The 
two are mutually dependent. And although in 
nearly all the arts we credit everything to the 
substance which we can weigh and handle, it is 
certain that in most cases the larger debt is 
due to an invisible Environment. 

This is one of those great commonplaces 
which slip out of general reckoning by reason 



ENVIRONMENT. 259 

of their very largeness and simplicity. How 
profound, nevertheless, are the issues which 
hang on this elementary truth, we shall dis- 
cover immediately. Nothing in this age is 
more needed in every department of knowl- 
edge than the rejuvenescence of the common- 
place. In the spiritual world, especially, he'N^ 
will be wise who courts acquaintance with the / 
most ordinary and transparent facts of Nature ; / 
and in laying the foundations for a religious 
life he will make no unworthy beginning who 
carries with him an impressive sense of so a^ 
obvious a truth as that without Environment \ 
there can be no life. 

For what does this amount to in the spiritual 
world? Is it not merely the scientific re-state- 
ment of the reiterated aphorism of Christ, 
** Without Me ve can do nothing-?" There is 
in the spiritual organism a principle of life; 
but that is not self-existent. It requires a 
second factor, a something in which to live 
and move and have its being, an Environment. 
Without this it cannot live or move or have 
any being. Without Environment the soul is 
as the carbon without the oxygen, as the fish 
without the water, as the animal frame with- 
out the extrinsic conditions of vitality. 

And what is the spiritual Environment? It 
is God. Without this, therefore, there is no 
life, no thought, no energy, nothing — ** with- 
out Me ye can do nothing." 

The cardinal error in the religious life is to 
attempt to live without an Environment. 
Spiritual experience occupies itself, not too 



260 ENVIRONMENT. 

much, but too exclusively, with one factor — 
the soul. We delight in dissecting this much 
tortured faculty, from time to time, in search 
of a certain something which we call our faith 
— forgetting that faith is but an attitude, an 
empty hand for grasping an environing Pres- 
ence. And when we feel the need of a power 
by which to overcome the world, how often do 
we not seek to generate it within ourselves by 
some forced process, some fresh girding of the 
will, some strained activity which only leaves 
the soul in further exhaustion? To examine 
ourselves good; but useless unless we also 
examine Environment. To bewail our weak- 
ness is right, but not remedial. The cause 
must be investigated as well as the result. 
And yet, because we never see the other half 
of the problem, our failures even fail to instruct 
us. After each new collapse we begin our life 
anew, but on the old conditions; and the 
attempt ends as usual in the repetition — in the 
circumstances the inevitable repetition — of the 
old disaster. Not that at times we do not 
obtain glimpses of the true state of the case. 
After seasons of much discouragement, with 
the sore sense upon us of our abject feebleness, 
we do confer with ourselves, insisting for the 
thousandth time, **My soul, wait thou only 
upon God.'' But, the lesson is soon forgotten. 
The strength supplied we speedily credit to 
our own achievement; and even the temporary 
success is mistaken for a symptom of improved 
inward vitality. Once more we become self- 
existent. Once more we go on living without 



ENVIRONMENT. 261 

an Environment And once more, after days 
of wasting without repairing, of spending with- 
out replenishing, we begin to perish with 
hunger, only returning to God again, as a last 
resort, when we have reached starvation point. 

Now why do we do this? Why do we seek 
to breathe without an atmosphere, to drink 
without a well? Why this unscientific attempt 
to sustain life for weeks at a time without an 
Environment? It is because we have never 
truly seen the necessity for an Environment. 
We have not been working with a principle. 
We are told to * ' wait only upon God, ' * but we do 
not know why. It has never been as clear to us 
that without God the soul will die as that with- 
out food the body will perish. In short, we 
have never comprehended the doctrine of the 
Persistence of Force. Instead of being content 
to transform energy we have tried to create it. 

The Law of Nature here is as clear as Science 
can make it. In the words of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, '*It is a corollary from that primor- 
dial truth which, as we have seen, underlies all 
other truths, that whatever amount of power 
an organism expands in any shape is the cor- 
relate and equivalent of a power that was taken 
into it from without.'* * We are dealing here 
with a simple question of dynamics. What- 
ever energy the soul expends must first be 
"taken into it from without." We are not 
Creators, but creatures; God is our refuge and 
strength. Communion with God, therefore, is 
a scientific necessity ; and nothing will more 

* "Principles of Biology," p. 57. 



262 ENVIRONMENT. 

help the defeated spirit which is struggling in 
the wreck of its religious life than a common- 
sense hold of this plain biological principle that 
without Environment he can do nothing. 
What he wants is not an occasional view, but a 
principle — a basal principle like this, broad as 
the universe, solid as nature. In the natural 
world we act upon this law unconsciously. 
We absorb heat, breathe air, draw on Environ- 
ment all but automatically for meat and drink, 
for the nourishment of the senses, for mental 
stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from 
without, can prolong, enrich, and elevate life. 
But in the spiritual world we have all this to 
learn. We are new creatures, and even the 
bare living has to be acquired. 

Now the great point in learning to live is to 
Uye naturally. As closely as possible we must 
follow the broad, clear lines of the natural life. 
And there are three things especially which it 
is necessary for us to keep continually in view. 
The first is that the organism contains within 
itself only one-half of what is essential to life; >^ 
the second is that the other half is contained ' 
in the Environment; the third, that the condi- \ 
tion of receptivity is simple union between the^ 
organism and the Environment. 

Translated into the language of religion 
these propositions yield, and place on a scien- 
tific basis, truths of immense practical interest. 

To say, first, that the organism contains 
within itself only one-half of what is essential 
to life, is to repeat the evangelical confession, 
so worn and yet so true to universal experi- 



ENVIRONxMENT. 263 

ence, of the utter helplessness of man. Who 
has not come to the conclusion that he is but a 
part, a fraction, of some larger whole? Who 
does not miss at every turn of his life an ab- 
sent God? That man is but a part, he knows, 
for there is room in him for more. That God 
is the other part, he feels, because at times He 
satisfies his need. Who does not tremble 
often under the sicklier symptom of his incom- 
pleteness, his w^ant of spiritual energy, his 
helplessness with sin? But now he under- 
stands both — the void in his life, the power- 
lessness of his wdll. He understands that, like 
all other energy, spiritual power is contained 
in Environment. He finds here at last the 
true root of all human frailty, emptiness, noth- 
ingness, sin. This is why ''without Me ye can 
do nothing. " Powerlessness is the normal 
state not only of this but of every organism — 
of every organism apart from its Environment. 
The entire dependence of the soul upon God 
is not an exceptional mystery, nor is man's 
helplessness an arbitrary and unprecedented 
phenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. 
The spiritual man is not taxed beyond the 
natural. He is not purposely handicapped by 
singular limitations or unusual incapacities. 
God has not designedly made the religious life 
as hard as possible. The arrangements for 
the spiritual life are the same as for the natu- 
ral life. When in their hours of unbelief men 
challenge their Creator for placing the obstacle 
of human frailty in the way of their highest de- 
velopment, their protest is against the order of 



264 ENVIRONMENT. 

nature. They object to the sun for being the 
source of energy and not the engine, to the car- 
bonic acid being in the air and not in the 
plant. They would equip each organism with 
a personal atmosphere, each brain with a pri- 
vate store of energy ; they would grow corn in 
the interior of the body, and make bread by a 
special apparatus in the digestive organs. 
They must, in short, have the creature trans- 
formed into a Creator. The organism must 
either depend on his environment, or be self- 
sufficient. But who will not rather approve 
the arrangement by which man in his creatural 
life may have unbroken access to an Infinite 
Power? What soul will seek to remain self- 
luminous when it knows that *' The Lord God is 
a Sun"? Who will not willingly exchange his 
shallow vessel for Christ's well of living water? 
Even if the organism, launched into being like 
a ship putting out to sea, possessed a full 
equipment, its little store must soon come to 
an end. But in contact with a large and 
bounteous Environment its supply is limitless. 
In every direction its resources are infinite. 

There is a modern school which protests 
against the doctrine of man's inability as the 
heartless fiction of a past theology. While 
some forms of that dogma, to any one who 
knows man, are incapable of defence, there 
are others which, to any one who knows Nature, 
are incapable of denial. Those who oppose it, 
in their jealousy for humanity, credit the organ- 
ism with the properties of Environment. All 
true theology, on the other hand, has remained 



ENVIRONMENT. 265 

loyal to at least the root-idea in this truth. 
The New Testament is nowhere more impres- 
sive than where it insists on the fact of man's 
dependence. In its view the first step in 
religion is for man to feel his helplessness. 
Christ's first beatitude is to the poor in spirit. 
The condition of entrance into the spiritual 
kingdom is to possess the child-spirit — that 
state of mind combining at once the profound- 
est helplessness with the most artless feeling 
of dependence. Substantially the same idea 
underlies the countless passages in which 
Christ affirms that He has not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance. And in 
that farewell discourse into which the Great 
Teacher poured the most burning convictions 
of His life, He gives to this doctrine an ever 
increasing emphasis. No words could be more 
solemn or arresting than the sentence in the 
last great allegory devoted to this theme, *'As 
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it 
abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye 
abide in Me.*' The word here, it will be ob- 
served again, is cannot. It is the imperative 
of natural law. Fruit-bearing without Christ 
is not an improbability, but an impossibility. 
As well expect the natural fruit to flourish 
without air and heat, without soil and sun- 
shine. How thoroughly also Paul grasped this 
truth is apparent from a hundred pregnant 
passages in which he echoes his Master's teach- 
ing. To him life was hid with Christ in God. 
And that he embraced this not as a theory but 
as an experimental truth we gather from his 

18 Natural Law 



266 ENVIRONMENT, 

constant confession, '*When I am weak, then 
am I strong." 

This leads by a natural transition to the sec- 
ond of the three points we are seeking to illus- 
trate. We have seen that the organism con- 
tains within itself only one half of what is 
essential to life. We have next to observe, as 
the complement of this, how the second half is 
contained in the Environment. 

One result of the due apprehension of our 
personal helplessness will be that we shall no 
longer waste our time over the impossible task 
of manufacturing energy for ourselves. Our 
science will bring to an abrupt end the long 
series of severe experiments in which we have 
indulged in the hope of finding a perpetual 
motion. And having decided upon this once 
for all, our first step in seeking a more satis- 
factory state of things must be to find a new 
source of energy. Following Nature, only one 
course is open to us. We must refer to En- 
vironment. The natural life owes all to Envi- 
ronment, so must the spiritual. Now the 
Environment of the spiritual life is God. As 
Nature therefore forms the complement of the 
natural life, God is the complement of the 
spiritual. 

/ The proof of this? That Nature is not more 
<^natural to my body than God is to my soul. 
Every animal and plant has its own Environ- 
ment. And the further one inquires into the 
relations of the one to the other, the more one 
sees the marvelous intricacy and beauty of 
the adjustments. These wonderful adapta- 



ENVIRONMENT. 267 

tions of each organism to its surroundings — of 
the fish to the water, of the eagle to the air, of 
the insect to the forest-bed; and of each part 
of every organism — the fish's swim-bladder, 
the eagle's eye, the insect's breathing tubes 
— which the old argument from design brought 
home to us with such enthusiasm, inspire us 
still with a sense of the boundless resource and 
skill of Nature in perfecting her arrangements 
for each single life. Down to the last detail the 
world is made for what is in it ; and by what- 
ever process things are as they are, all organ- 
isms find in surrounding Nature the ample 
complement of themselves. Man, too, finds 
in his Environment provision for all capacities, 
scope for the exercise of every faculty, room 
for the indulgence of each appetite, a just sup- 
ply for every want. So the spiritual man at 
the apex of the pyramid of life finds in the 
vaster range of his Environment a provision, 
a^ much higher, it is true, as he is higher, but 
as delicately adjusted to his varying needs. 
And all this is supplied to him just as the lower 
organisms are ministered to by the lower envi- 
ronment, in the same simple ways, in the same 
constant sequence, as appropriately and as lav- 
ishly. We fail to praise the ceaseless ministry 
of the great inanimate world around us only 
because its kindness is unobtrusive. Nature is 
always noiseless. All her greatest gifts are 
given in secret. And we forget how truly 
every good and perfect gift comes from with- 
out, and from above, because no pause in her 



268 ENVIRONMENT. 

changeless beneficence teaches us the sad 
lessons of deprivation. 

It is not a strange thing, then, for the soul 
to find its life in God. This is its native air. 
God as the Environment of the soul has been 
from the remotest age the doctrine of all the 
deepest thinkers in religion. How profoundly 
Hebrew poetry is saturated with this high 
thought will appear when we try to conceive 
of it with this left out. True poetry is only 
science in another form. And long before it 
was possible for religion to give scientific ex- 
pression to its greatest truths, men of insight 
uttered themselves in psalms which could not 
have been truer to Nature had the most 
modern light controlled the inspiration. *'As' 
the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so 
panteth my soul after Thee, OGod. *' What 
fine sense of the analogy of the natural and the 
spiritual does not underlie these words! As 
the hart after its Environment, so man after 
his; as the water- brooks are fitly designed to 
meet the natural wants, so fitly does God im- 
plement the spiritual need of man. It will be 
noticed that in the Hebrew poets the longing 
for God never strikes one as morbid, or unnatu- 
ral to the men who uttered it. It is as natural 
to them to long for God as for the swallow to 
seek her nest. Throughout all their images 
no suspicion rises within us that they are exag- 
gerating. We feel how truly they are reading 
themselves, their deepest selves. No false 
note occurs in all their aspiration. There is 
no weariness even in their ceaseless sighing. 



ENVIRONMENT. 269 

except the lover's weariness for the absent — if 
they would fly away, it is only to be at rest. 
Men who have no soul can only wonder at this. 
Men who have a soul, but with little faith, can 
only envy it. How joyous a thing it was to 
the Hebrews to seek their God ! How artlessly 
they call upon Him to entertain them in His 
pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to 
hide them in His secret place, to hold them in 
the hollow of His hand, or stretch around them 
the everlasting arms! These men were true 
children of Nature. As the humming-bird 
among its own palm-trees, as the ephemera iu 
the 'sunshine of a summer evening, so they 
lived their joyous lives. And even the full 
share of the sadder experiences of life which 
came to all of them but drove them the further 
into the Secret Place, and led them with more 
consecration to m^ake, as they expressed it, 
'* the Lord their portion. '* All that has been 
said since from Marcus Aurelius to Sweden- 
borg, from Augustine to Schleiermacher of a 
besetting God as the final complement of 
humanity is but a repetition of the Hebrew 
poet's faith. And even the New Testament has 
nothing higher to offer man than this. The 
psalmist's *'God is our refuge and strength'' is 
only the earlier form, less defined, less practic- 
able, but not less noble, of Christ's '*Come 
unto Me, and I will give you rest." 

There is a brief phrase of Paul's which de- 
fines the relation with almost scientific accu- 
racy, — *'Ye are complete in Him." In this is 
summed up the whole of the Bible anthropol- 



270 ENVIRONMENT. 

ogy — the completeness of man in God, his in- 
completeness apart from God. 

If it be asked, In what is man incomplete, 
or, In what does God complete him? the ques- 
tion is a wide one. But it may serve to show 
at least the direction in which the Divine En- 
vironment forms the complement of human 
life if we ask ourselves once more what it is in 
life that needs complementing. And to this 
question we receive the significant answer that 
it is in the higher departments alone, or 
mainly, that the incompleteness of our life 
appears. The lower departments of Nature are 
already complete enough. The world itself 
is about as good a world as might be. It has 
been long in the making, its furniture is all in, 
its laws are in perfect working order; and 
although wise men at various times have sug- 
gested improvements, there is on the whole a 
tolerably unanimous vote of confidence in 
things as they exist. The Divine Environment 
has little more to do for this planet so far as 
we can see, and so far as the existing genera- 
tion is concerned. Then the lower organic 
life of the world is also so far complete. God, 
through Evolution or otherwise, may still have 
finishing touches to add here and there, but 
already it is **all very good. " It is difficult to 
conceive anything better of its kind than a lily 
or a cedar, an ant or an ant-eater. These 
organisms, so far as we can judge, lack noth- 
ing. It might be said of them, *'they are com- 
plete in Nature. '' Of man also, of man the 
animal, it may be affirmed that his Environ- 



ENVIRONMENT. 271 

ment satisfies him. He has food and drink, 
and good food and good drink. And there is 
in him no purely animal want which is not 
really provided for, and that apparently in the 
happiest possible way. 

But the moment we pass beyond the mere 
animal life we begin to come upon an incom- 
pleteness. The symptoms at first are slight, 
and betray themselves only by an unexplained 
restlessness or a dull sense of want. Then 
the feverishness increases, becomes more de- 
fined, and passes slowly into abiding pain. 
To some come darker moments when the un- 
rest deepens into a mental agony of which all 
the other woes of earth are mockeries — mo- 
ments when the forsaken soul can only cry in 
terror for the Living God. Up to a point the \ 
natural Environment supplies man's wants, \ 
beyond that it only derides him. How much 
in man lies beyond that point? Very much — 
almost all, all that makes man man. The 
first suspicion of the terrible truth — so for the 
time let us call it — wakens with the dawn of < 
the intellectual life. It is a solemn moment 
when the slow-moving mind reaches at length 
the verge of its mental horizon, and, looking 
over, sees nothing more. Its straining makes 
the abyss but more profound. Its cry comes 
back without an echo. Where is the Environ- 
ment to complete this rational soul? Men 
either find one, — One — or spend the rest of 
their days in trying to shut their eyes. The 
alternatives of the intellectual life are Christi- 
anity or Agnosticism. The Agnostic is right 



272 ENVIRONMENT. 

when he trumpets his incompleteness. He 
who is not complete in Him must be forever 
incomplete. Still more grave becomes man's 
case when he begins further to explore his 
moral and social nature. The problems of 
the heart and conscience are infinitely more 
perplexing than those of the intellect. Has 
love no future? Has right no triumph? Is the 
unfinished self to remain unfinished? Again 
the alternatives are two, Christianity or Pessi- 
mism. But when we ascend the further height 
of the religious nature, the crisis comes. 
There, without Environment, the darkness is 
unutterable. So maddening now becomes the 
mystery that men are compelled to construct 
an Environment for themselves. No Environ- 
ment here is unthinkable. An altar of some 
sort men must have — God, or Nature, or Law. 
But the anguish of Atheism is only a negative 
proof of man's incompleteness. A witness 
more overwhelming is the prayer of the Chris- 
tian. What a very strange thing, is it not, for 
man to pray? It is the symbol at once of his 
littleness and of his greatness. Here the sense 
of imperfection, controlled and silenced in the 
narrower reaches of his being, becomes audible. 
Now he must utter himself. The sense of 
need is so real, and the sense of Environment, 
that he calls out to it, addressing it articu- 
lately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. 
Surely there is nothing more touching in 
Nature than this. Man could never so expose 
himself, so break through all constraint, ex- 
cept from a dire necessity. It is the sudden- 



ENVIRONMENT. 273 

ness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that 
gives it a unique value as an apologetic. 

Man has three questions to put to his En- 
vironment, three Symbols of his incomplete- 
ness. They come from three different centers 
of his being. The first is the question of the 
intellect, What is Truth? The natural Envi- 
ronment answers, '* Increase of Knowledge in- 
crease th Sorrow," and *'much study is a 
Weariness." Christ replies, ''Learn of Me, 
and ye shall find Rest." Contrast the world's 
word ''Weariness" with Christ's word "Rest." 
No other teacher since the world began han 
ever associated "learn" with "Rest." Learn 
of me, says the Philosopher and you shall find 
restlessness. Learn of me, says Christ, and ye 
shall find Rest. Thought, which the godless man 
has cursed, that eternally starved yet ever living 
spectre, finds at last its imperishable glory; 
Thgjaght is complete in Him. The second ques- 
tion is sent up from the rnoral nature. Who will 
show us any good? And again we have a con- 
trast: the world's verdict, "There is none that 
doeth good, no, not one;" and Christ's, "There 
is none good but God only. " And, finally, there 
is the lonely cry of the spirit, most pathetic 
and most deep of all, Where is He whom my 
soul seeketh? And the yearning is met as be- 
fore, "I looked on my right hand, and beheld, 
but there was no man that would know me; 
refuge failed me ; no man cared for my soul. 
I cried unto Thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art 

18 



274 ENVIRONMENT. 

my refuge and my portion in the land of the 
living. "* 

Are these the directions in which men in 
these days are seeking to complete their lives? 
The completion of Life is jtist now a supreme 
question. It is important to observe how it is 
being answered. If we ask Science or Philos- 
ophy they will refer us to Evolution. The 
struggle for Life, they assure us, is steadily 
eliminating imperfect forms, and as the fittest 
continue to survive we shall have a gradual 
perfecting of being. That is to say, the com- 
pleteness is to be sought for in the organism — 
we are to be complete in Nature and in our- 
selves. To Evolution, certainly, all men will 
look for a further perfecting of Life. But it must 
be an Evolution which includes all the factors. 
Civilization, it may be said, will deal with the 
second factor. It will improve the Environ- 
ment step by step as it improves the organism, 
or the organism as it improves the Environ- 
ment. This is well, and it will perfect Life up 
to a point. But beyond that it cannot carry 
us. As the possibilities of the natural Life 
become more defined, its impossibilities will 
become the more appalling. The most perfect 
civilization would leave the best part of us still 
incomplete. Men will have to give up the ex- 
periment of attempting to live in half an En- 
vironment. Half an Environment will give 
but half a Life. Half an Environment? He ' 
whose correspondences are with this world 
alone has only a thousandth part, a fraction, 

* Ps. cxlii. 4» 5. 



ENVIRONMENT. 275 

the mere rim and shade of an Environment, 
and only the fraction of a Life. How long 
will it take Science to believe its own creed, 
that the material universe we see around us is 
only a fragment of the universe we do not see? 
The very retention of the phrase ** Material 
Universe/' we are told, is the confession of 
our unbelief and ignorance; since **matter is 
the less important half of the material of the 
physical universe."* 

The thing to be aimed at is not an organism 
self-contained and self-sufficient, however high 
in the scale of being, but an organism com- 
plete in the whole Environment. It is open to 
any one to aim at a self-sufficient Life, but he 
will find no encouragement in Nature. The 
Life of the body may complete itself in the 
physical world; that is its legitimate Environ- 
ment. The Life of the senses, high and low, 
may perfect itself in Nature. Even the Life 
of thought may find a large complement in sur- 
rounding things. But the higher thought, and 
the conscience, and the religious Life, can only 
perfect themselves in God. To make the in- 
fluence of Environment stop with the natural 
world is to doom the spiritual nature to death. 
For the soul, like the body, can never perfect 
itself in isolation. The law for both is to be 
complete in the appropriate Environment. 
And the perfection to be sought in the spirit- 
ual world is a perfection of relation, a perfect 
adjustment of that which is becoming perfect 
to that which is perfect. 

* The "Unseen Universe," 6th Ed., p. 100. 



2^6 ENVIRONMENT. 

The third problem, now simplified to a 
point, finally presents itself. Where do or- 
ganism and Environment meet? How does 
that which is becoming perfect avail itself of 
its perfecting Environment? And the answer 
is, just as in Nature. The condition is simply 
receptivity. And yet this is perhaps the least 
simply of all conditions. It is so simple that 
we will not act upon it. But there is no other 
condition. Christ has condensed the whole 
truth into one memorable sentence, '*As the 
branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it 
abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye 
abide in Me.*' And on the positive side, *'He 
that abideth in Me the same bringeth forth 
much fruit.'* 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 



277 



• 'So careful of the type?' but no, 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone, 
I care for nothing, all shall go. 

'Thou.makest thine appeal to me; 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but mean thy breath: 

I know no more.' And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes. 
Who roird the psalm to wintry skies, 

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer. 

Who trusted God was love indeed 
And love Creation's final law — 
Tho* Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With rapine, shriek'd against his creed — 

Who loved, who suffer 'd countless ills, 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust 

Or seal'd within the iron hills?" 

In Memoriam. 



278 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

**Until Christ be formed in you." — Paul. 

"The one end to which, in all living beings, the fornix 
ative impulse is tending — the one scheme which the 
Archseus of the old speculators strives to carry out, 
seems to be to mould the offspring into the likenesss of 
the parent. It is the first great law of reproduction, 
that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or parents 
more closely than anything else. "—Huxley. 

If a botanist be asked the difference between 
an oak, a palm-tree, and a lichen, he will de- 
clare that they are separated from one another 
by the broadest line known to classification. 
Without taking- into account the outward dif- 
ferences of size and form, the variety of flower 
and fruit, the peculiarities of leaf and branch, 
he sees even in their general architecture 
types of structure as distinct as Norman, 
Gothic and Egyptian. But if the first young 
germs of these three plants are placed before 
him and he is called upon to define the differ- 
ence, he finds it impossible. He cannot even 
say which is which. Examined under the 
highest powers of the microscope they yield no 
clue. Analyzed by the chemist with all the 
appliances of his laboratory they keep their 
secret. 

The same experiment can be tried with the 
279 



280 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

embryos of animals. Take the ovule of the 
worm, the eagle, the elephant, and of man 
himself. Let the most skilled observer apply 
the most searching tests to distinguish one from 
the other, and he will fail. But there is some- 
thing more surprising still. Compare next the 
two sets of germs, the vegetable and the ani- 
mal. And there is still no shade of difference. • 
Oak and palm, worm and man, all start in life 
together. No matter into what strangely 
different forms they may afterwards develop, 
no matter whether they are to live on sea or 
land, creep or fly, swim or walk, think or veg- 
etate, in the embryo, as it first meets the eye of 
Science, they are indistinguishable. The apple 
which fell in Newton's Garden, Newton's dog 
Diamond, and Newton himself, began life at 
the same point.* 

If we anal3^ze this material point at which 
all life starts, we shall find it to consist of a 
clear structureless, jelly-like substance resem- 
bling albumen or white of egg. It is made of 
Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. 
Its name is protoplasm. And it is not only the 

* "There is, indeed, a period in the development of every tis- 
sue and every living thing known to us when there are actually 
no structural peculiarities whatever— when the whole organism 
consists of transparent, structureless, semi-fluid living bioplasm 
—when it would not be possible to distinguish the growing mov- 
ing matter which was to evolve the oak from that which was the 
germ of a vertebrate animal. Nor can any difference be dis- 
cerned between the bioplasm matter of the lowest, simplest, 
epithelial scale of man's organism and that from which the 
nerve cells of his brain are to be evolved. Neither by studying 
bioplasm under the microscope nor by any kind of physical or 
chemical investigation known, can we form any notion of the 
nature of the substance which is to be formed by the bioplasm, 
or what will be the ordinary results of the living." "Bioplasm," 
Lionel S. Beale, F. R. S., pp. 17, 18. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 281 

structural unit with which all living bodies 
start in life, but with which they are subse- 
quently built up. '* Protoplasm," says Huxley, 
* 'simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all 
life. It is the clay of the Potter." '* Beast 
and fowl, reptile and fish, moUusk, worm and 
polype are all composed of structural units of 
the same character, namely, masses of proto- 
plasm with nucleus."* 

What then determines the difference be- 
tween different animals? What makes one 
little speck of protoplasm grow into Newton's 
dog Diamond, and another, exactly the same, 
into Newton himself? It is a mysterious some- 
thing which has entered into this protoplasm. 
No eye can see it. No science can define it. 
There is a different something for Newton's 
dog and a different something for Newton ; so 
that though both use the same matter they 
build up in these widely different ways. Pro- 
toplasm being the clay, this something is the 
Potter. And as there is only one clay and yet 
all these curious forms are developed out of it, 
it follows necessarily that the difference lies in 
the potters. There must, in short, be as many 
potters as there are forms. There is the pot- 
ter who segments the worm, and the potter 
who builds up the form of the dog, and the pot- 
ter who moulds the man. To understand 
unmistakably that it is really the potter who 
does the work, let us follow for a moment a 
description of the process by a trained eye- 
witness. The observer is Mr. Huxley. 

* Huxley: "Lay Sermons," 6th Ed., pp. 127-129. 



282 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

Through the tube of his microscope he is 
watching the development, out of a speck of 
protoplasm, of one of the commonest animals: 
** Strange possibilities,'* he says, ''lie dormant 
in that semi-fluid globule. Let a moderate 
supply of warmth reach its watery cradle and 
the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid 
and yet so steady and purposelike in their suc- 
cession, that one can only compare them to 
those operated by a skilled modeler upon a 
formless lump of clay. As with an invisible 
trowel the mass is divided and subdivided into 
smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced 
to an aggregation of granules not too large to 
build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent 
organism. And, then, it is as if a delicate 
finger traced out the line to be occupied by the 
spinal column, and moulded the contour of the 
body; pinching up the head at one end, the 
tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb 
into due proportions in so artistic a way, that, 
after watching the process hour by hour, one is 
almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, 
that some more subtle aid to vision than an 
achromatic would show the hidden artist, with 
his plan before him, striving with skilful 
manipulation to perfect his work."* 

Besides the fact, so luminously brought out 
here, that the artist is distinct from the ''semi- 
fluid globule*' of protoplasm in which he works, 
there is this other essential point to notice, 
that in all his "skilful manipulation" the artist 
is not working at random, but according to 

* Huxley: "Lay Sermons'" 6th Ed., p. 261. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 283 

law. He has **his plan before him." In the 
zoological laboratory of Nature it is not as in 
a workshop where a skilled artisan can turn 
his hand to anything — where the same potter 
one day moulds a dog, the next a bird, and 
the next a man. In Nature one potter is set 
apart to make each. It is a more complete 
system of division of labor. One artist makes 
all the dogs, another makes all the birds, a 
third makes all the men. Moreover, each art- 
ist confines himself exclusively to working out 
his own plan. He appears to have his own 
plan somewhat stamped upon himself, and his 
work is rigidly to reproduce himself. 

The Scientific Law by which this takes 
place is the Law of Conformity to Type. It 
is contained, to a large extent, in the ordinary 
Law of Inheritance; or it may be considered 
as simply another way of stating what Darwin 
calls the Law of Unity of Type. Darwin 
defines it thus: *'By Unity of Type is meant 
that fundamental agreement in structure 
which we see in organic beings of the same 
class, and which is quite independent of their 
habits of life."* 

According to this law every living thing that 
comes into the world is compelled to stamp upon 
its offspring the image of itself. The dog, 
according to its type, produces a dog ; the bird 
a bird. 

The Artist who operates upon matter in this 
subtle way and carries out this law is Life. 
There are a great many different kinds of 

* "Origin of Species," p. 166. 



284 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

Life. If one might give the broader meaning 
to the words of the apostle: "All life is not 
the same life. There is one kind of life of 
men, another life of beasts, another of fishes, 
and another of birds. ' ' There is the Life, or 
the Artist, or the Potter who segments the 
worm, the potter who forms the dog, the pot- 
ter who moulds the man.* 

What goes on then in the animal kingdom is 
this — the Bird-Life seizes upon the bird-germ 
and builds it up into a bird, the image of 
itself. The Reptile-Life seizes upon another 
germinal speck, assimilates surrounding mat- 
ter, and fashions it into a reptile. The Rep- 
tile-Life thus simply ma'kes an incarnation of 
itself. The visible bird is simply an incarna- 
tion of the invisible Bird-Life. 

Now we are nearing the point where the 
spiritual analogy appears. It is a very wonder- 
ful analogy, so wonderful that one almost hesi- 
tates to put it into words. Yet Nature is rev- 
erent ; and it is her voice to which we listen. 
These lower phenomena of life, she says, are 
but an allegory. There is another kind of Life 
of which Science as yet has taken little cogn- 
izance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up 
an organism into its own form. It is the Christ- 

* There is no intention here to countenance the old doctrine of 
the permanence of species. Whether the word species repre- 
sent a fixed quantity or the reverse does not affect the question. 
The facts as stated are true in contemporary zoolo^ry if not in 
palaeontology. It may also be added that the general concep- 
tion of a definite Vital Principle is used here simply as a work- 
ing hypothesis. Science may yet have to give up what the Ger- 
mans call the "ontogenetic directive Force." But in the absence 
of any proof to the contrary, and especially of any satisfactory 
alternative, we are justified in working still with the old theory. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 285 

Life. As the Bird- Life builds up a bird, the 
image of itself, so the Christ-Life builds up a 
Christ, the image of Himself, in the inward 
nature of man. When a man becomes a 
Christian the natural process is this: The 
Living Christ enters into his soul. Develop- 
ment begins. The quickening Life seizes upon 
the soul, assimilates surrounding elements, 
and begins to fashion it. According to the 
great Law of Conformity to Type this fashion- 
ing takes a specific form. It is that of the 
Artist who fashions. And all through Life this 
wonderful mystical, glorious, yet perfectly 
definite process goes on * 'until Christ be 
formed'* in it. 

The Christian Life is not a vague effort after 
righteousness — an ill-defined pointless struggle 
for an ill-defined pointless end. Religion is no 
dishevelled mass of aspiration, prayer, and 
faith. There is no more mystery in Religion 
as to its processes than in Biology. There is 
much mystery in Biology. We knew all but 
nothing of Life yet, nothing of development. 
There is the same mystery in the spiritual life. 
But the great lines are the same, as decided, 
as luminous ; and the laws of natural and spirit- 
ual are the same, as unerring, as simple. Will 
everything else in the natural world unfold its 
order, and yield to Science more and more a 
vision of harmony and Religion, which should 
complement and perfect all, remain a chaos? 
From the standpoint of Revelation no truth 
is more obscure than Conformity to Type. If 
Science can furnish a companion phenomenon 



286 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

from an every- day process of the natural life, 
it may at least throw this most mystical doc- 
trine of Christianity into thinkable form. Is 
there any fallacy in speaking of the Embryology 
of the New Life? Is the analogy invalid? 
Are' there not vital processes in the Spiritual 
as well as in the Natural world? The Bird, 
being an incarnation of the Bird- Life, may not 
the Christian be a spiritual incarnation of the 
Christ- Life? And is there not a real justifica- 
tion in the processes of the New Birth for such 
a parallel? 

Let us appeal to the record of these pro- 
cesses. 

In what term does the New Testament 
describe them? The answer is sufficiently 
striking. It uses everywhere the language of 
Biology. It is impossible that the New Test- 
ament writers should have been familiar with 
these biological facts. It is impossible that 
their views of this great truth should have 
been as clear as Science can make them now. 
But they had no alternative. There was no 
other way of expressing this truth. It was a 
biological question. So they struck out unhes- 
itatingly into the new field of words, and, with 
an originality which commands both reverence 
and surprise, stated their truth with such light, 
or darkness, as they had. They did not mean 
to be scientific, only to be accurate, and their 
fearless accuracy has made them scientific. 

What could be more original, for instance, 
than the apostle's reiteration that the Chris- 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 287 

tian was a new creature, a new man, a babe?* 
Or that this new man was begotten of God,'* 
God's workmanship?f And what could be a 
more accurate expression of the law of Con- 
formity to Type than this: '*Put on the new 
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the 
image of Him that created him?"J Or this, 
'*We are changed into the same image from 
glory to glory ?"§ And elsewhere we are 
expressly told by the same writer that this Con- 
formity is the end and goal of the Christian 
life. To work this Type in us is the whole 
purpose of God and man. *' Whom He did fore- 
know He also did predestinate to be conformed 
to the image of His Son."** 

One must confess that the originality of this 
entire New Testament conception is most 
startling Even for the nineteenth century it is 
most startling. But when one remembers 
that such an idea took form in the first, 
he cannot fail to be impressed with a deepen- 
ing wonder at the system which begat and 
cherished it. Men seek the origin of Christi- 
anity among the philosophies of that age. 
Scholars contrast it still with these philos- 
ophies, and scheme to fit it in to those of later 
growth. Has it never occurred to them how 
much more it is than a philosophy, that it 
includes a science, a Biology pure and simple? 
As well might naturalists contrast zoology with 
chemistry, or seek to incorporate geology with 

*2 Cor. V. 17. tjohn v. 18; 1 Pet. i. 3. 

JCol. iii. 9, 10. §2 Cor. iii. 18. 

**Rom. viii. 29. 



288 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

botany — the living with the dead — as try to 
explain the spiritual life in terms of mind alone. 
When it will be seen that the characteristic of 
the Christian Religion is its Life, that a true 
theology must begin with a Biology? The- 
ology is the Science of God. Why will men 
treat God as inorganic? 

If this analogy is capable of being worked 
out, we should expect answers to at least three 
questions. 

First: What corresponds to the protoplasm 
in the spiritual sphere? 

Second: What is the Life, the Hidden Artist 
who fashions it? 

Third : What do we know of the process and 
the plan? 

First: The Protoplasm. 

We should be forsaking the lines of nature 
were we to imagine for a moment that the 
new creature was to be formed out of nothing. 

Ex nihilo nihil — nothing can be made out of 
nothing. Matter is uncreatable and inde- 
structible ; Nature and man can only form and 
transform. Hence when a new animal is made 
no new clay is made. Life merely enters 
into already existing matter, assimiliates more 
of the same sort and rebuilds it. The spiritual 
Artist works in the same way. He must have 
a peculiar kind of protoplasm, a basis of life, 
and that wust be already existing. 

Now He finds this in the materials of char- 
acter with which the natural man is previously 
provided. Mind and character, the will and 
the affections, the moral nature — these form 




' The life of man is a broken pillar." — Page 303. 

Natural Law in the Spiritual World 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 289 

the bases of spiritual life. To look in this 
direction for the protoplasm of the spiritual life 
is consistent with all analogy. The lowest or 
mineral world mainly supplies the material 
— and this is true even for insectivorous species 
— for the vegetable kingdom. The vegetable 
supplies the material for the animal. Next in 
turn, the animal furnishes material for the 
mental, and lastly, the mental for the spiritual. 
Each member of the series is complete only 
when the steps below it are complete ; the high- 
est demands all. It is not necessary for the 
immediate purpose to go so far into the psychol- 
ogy either of the new creature or of the old as 
to define more clearly what these moral bases 
are. It is enough to discover that in this womb 
the new creature is to be born, fashioned out 
of the mental and moral parts, substance, or 
essence of the natural man. The only thing 
to be insisted upon is that in the natural man 
this mental and moral substance or basis is 
spiritually lifeless. However active the intel- 
lectual or moral life may be, from the point of 
view of this other Life it is dead. That which 
is flesh is flesh. It wants, that is to say, the 
kind of Life which constitutes the difference 
between the Christian and the not-a-Christian. 
It has not yet been **born of the Spirit. ** 

To show further that this protoplasm pos- 
sesses the necessary properties of a normal 
protoplasm, it will be necessary to examine in 
passing what these properties are. They are 
two in number, the capacity for life and plas- 
ticity. Consider first the capacity for life. It 

19 Natural Law 



:290 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

is not enough to find an adequate supply of 
material. That material must be of the right 
kind. For all kinds of matter have not the 
power to be the vehicle of life — all kinds of 
matter are not even fitted to be the vehicle of 
electricity. What peculiarity there is in Car- 
bon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, when 
combined in a certain way, to receive life, we 
cannot tell. We only know that life is always 
associated in Nature with this particular phys- 
ical basis and never with any other. But we 
are not in the same darkness with regard to the 
moral protoplasm. When we look at this com- 
plex combination which we have predicated as 
the basis of spiritual life, we do find something 
which gives it a peculiar qualification for being 
the protoplasm of the Christ-Life. We dis- 
cover one strong reason at least, not only why 
this kind of life should be associated with this 
kind of protoplasm, but why it should never be 
associated with other kinds which seem to 
resemble it — why, for instance, this spiritual 
life should mot be engrafted upon the intelli- 
gence of a dog or the instinct of an ant. 

The protoplasm in man has a something in 
addition to its instincts or its habits. It has a 
capacity for God. In this capacity for God lies 
its receptivity; it is the very protoplasm that 
was necessary. The chamber is not only 
ready to receive the new Life, but the Guest is 
expected, and, till He comes, is missed. Till 
then the soul longs and yearns, wastes and 
pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the 
empty air, feeling after God if so be that it 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 291 

may find Him. This is not peculiar to the 
protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In e very- 
land and in every age there have been altars 
to the Known or Unknown God. It is now 
agreed as a mere question of anthropology that 
the universal language of the human soul has 
always been ''I perish with hunger." This is 
what fits it for Christ. There is a grandeur 
in this cry from the depths which makes its 
very unhappiness sublime. 

The other quality we are to look for in the 
soul is mouldableness, plasticity. Conformity 
demands conformability. Now plasticity is 
not only a marked characteristic of all forms of 
life, but in a special sense of the highest forms. 
It increases steadily as we rise in the scale. 
The inorganic world, to begin with, is rigid. 
A crystal of silica dissolved and redissolved a 
thousand times will never assume any other 
form than the hexagonal. The plant next, 
though plastic in its elements, is comparatively 
insusceptible of change. The very fixity of its 
sphere, the imprisonment for life in a single 
spot of earth, is the symbol of a certain degrada- 
tion. The animal in all its parts is mobile, 
sensitive, free ; the highest animal, man, is the 
most mobile, the most at leisure from routine, 
the most impressionable, the most open for 
change. And when we reach the mind and 
soul, this mobility is found in its most devel- 
oped form. Whether we regard its susceptibility 
to impressions, its lightning-like response even 
to influences the most impalpable and subtle, 
its power of instantaneous adjustment, or 



292 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

whether we regard the delicacy and variety of 
its moods, or its vast powers of growth, we are 
forced to recognize in this the most perfect 
capacity for change. The marvelous plastic- 
ity of mind contains at once the possibility and 
prophecy of its transformation. The soul, in 
a word, is made to be converted. 

Second, the Life. 

The main reason for giving the Life, the 
agent of this change, a separate treatment, is 
to emphasize the distinction between it and the 
natural man on the one hand, and the spiritual 
man on the other. The natural man is its 
basis, the spiritual man is its product, the Life 
itself is something different. Just as in an 
organism we have these three things — form- 
ative matter, formed matter, and the forming 
principle or life ; so in the soul we have the 
old nature, the renewed nature, and the trans- 
forming Life. 

This being made evident, little remains here 
to be added. No man has ever seen this Life. 
It cannot be analyzed, or weighed, or traced 
in its essential nature. But this is just what 
we expected. This invisibility is the same 
property which we found to be peculiar to the 
natural life. We saw no life in the first 
embryos, in oak, in palm, or in bird. In the 
adult it likewise escapes us. We shall not 
wonder if we cannot see it in the Christian. 
We shall not expect to see it. A fortiori w^e 
shall not expect to see it, for we are further 
removed from the coarser matter — moving 
now among ethereal and spiritual things. It is 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 293 

because it conforms to the law of this analogy 
so well that men, not seeing it, have denied its 
being. Is it hopeless to point out that one of 
the most recognizable characteristics of life is 
its unrecognizableness, and that the very token 
of its spiritual nature lies in its being beyond 
the grossness of our eyes? 

We do not pretend that vScience can define 
this Life to be Christ. It has no definition to 
give even of its own life, much less of this. 
But there are converging lines which point, at 
least, in the direction that is Christ. There 
was One whom history acknowledges to have 
been the Truth. One of His claims was this, 
''I am the Life." According to the doctrine 
of Biogenesis, life can only come from life. 
It was His additional claim that His function 
in the world was to give men Life. '*! am 
come that ye might have Life, and that ye 
might have it more abundantly." This could 
not refer to the natural life, for men had that 
already. He that hath the Son hath another 
Life. "Know ye not your own selves how 
that Jesus Christ is in you. " 

Again, there are men whose characters 
assume a strange resemblance to Him who was 
the Life. When we see the bird-character 
appear in an organism we assume that the 
Bird-Life has been there at work. And when 
we behold Conformity to Type in a Christian, 
and know moreover that the type-organization 
can be produced by the type-life alone, does 
this not lend support to the hypothesis that 
the Type-Life also has been here at work? If 



294 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

every effect demands a cause, what other cause 
is there for the Christian? When we have a 
cause, and an adequate cause, and no other 
adequate cause; when we have the express 
statement of that Cause that he is that cause, 
what more is possible? Let not Science, know- 
ing nothing of its own life, go further than to 
say it knows nothing of this Life. We shall 
not dissent from its silence. But till it tells us 
what it is, we wait for evidence that it is not 
this. 

Third, the Process. 

It is impossible to enter at length into any 
details of the great miracle by which this pro- 
toplasm is to be conformed to the Image of 
the Son. We enter that province now only so 
far as this Law of Conformity compels us. 
Nor is it so much the nature of the process we 
have to consider as its general direction and 
results. We are dealing with a question of 
morphology rather than of physiology. 

It must occur to one on reaching this point, 
that a new element here comes in which com- 
pels us, for the moment, to part company w'th 
zoology. That element is the conscious power 
of choice. The animal in following the type is 
blind. It does not only follow the type involun- 
tarily and compulsorily, but does not know that 
it is following it. We might certainly have 
been made to conform to the Type in the 
higher sphere with no more knowledge or 
power of choice than animals or automata. 
But then we should not have been men. It is 
a possible case, but not possible to the kind of 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 295 

protoplasm with which men are furnished. 
Owing to the peculiar characteristics of this 
protoplasm an additional and exceptional pro- 
vision is essential. 

The first demand is that being conscious and 
having this power of choice, the mind should 
have an adequate knowledge of what it is to 
choose. Some revelation of the Type, that is 
to say, is necessary. And as that revelation 
can only come from the Type, we must look 
there for it. 

We are confronted at once with the Incarna- 
tion. There we find how the Christ-Life has 
clothed Himself with matter, taking literal 
flesh, and dwelt among us. The Incarnation 
is the Life revealing the Type. Men are long 
since agreed that this is the end of the Incarna- 
tion — the revealing of God. But why should 
God be revealed? Why, indeed, but for man? 
Why but that **beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the only begotten we should be 
changed into the same Image?** 

To meet the power of choice, however, some- 
thing more was necessary than the mere revel- 
cation of the Type — it was necessary that the 
'Type should be the highest conceivable Type. 
In other words, the Type must be an Ideal. 
For all true human growth, effort, and achieve- 
' ment, an ideal is acknowledged to be indis- 
pensable. And all men accordingly whose 
lives are based on principle, have set them- 
selves an ideal, more or less perfect. It is this 
which first deflects the will from what is base, 
and turns the wayward life to what is holy. 



296 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

So much is true as mere philosophy. But 
philosophy failed to present men with their 
Ideal. It has never been suggested that 
Christianity has failed. Believers and unbe- 
lievers have been compelled to acknowledge 
that Christianity holds up to the world the 
missing Type, the Perfect Man. 

The recognition of the Ideal is the first step 
in the direction of Conformity. But let it be 
clearly observed that it is but a step. There 
is no vital connection between merely seeing 
the Ideal and being conformed to it. Thou- 
sands admire Christ who never become Chris- 
tians. 

But the great question still remains, How is 
the Christian to be conformed to the Type, or 
as we should now say, dealing with conscious- 
ness, to the Ideal? The mere knowledge of the 
Ideal is no more than a motive. How is the 
process to be practically accomplished? Who 
is to do it? Where, when, how? This is the 
test question of Christianity. It is here that 
all theories of Christianity, all attempts to 
explain it on natural principles, all reductions 
of it to philosophy, inevitably break down. It 
is here that all imitations of Christianity perish. 
It is here, also, that personal religion finds its 
most fatal obstacle. Men are all quite clear 
about the Ideal. We are all convinced of 
the duty of mankind regarding it. But how 
to secure that willing men shall attain it — that 
is the problem of religion. It is the failure to 
understand the dynamics of Christianity that 
has most seriously and most pitifully hindered 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 297 

its growth both in the individual and in the 
race. 

From the standpoint of biology this practical 
difficulty vanishes in a moment. It is probably 
the very simplicity of the law regarding it that 
has made men stumble. For nothing is so in- 
visible to most men as transparency. The law 
here is the same biological law that exists in 
the natural world. For centuries men have 
striven to find out ways and means to conform 
themselves to this type. Impressive motives 
have been pictured, the proper circumstances 
arranged, the direction of effort defined, and 
men have toiled, struggled, and agonized to 
conform themselves to the Image of the Son. 
Can the protoplasm conform itself to its type? 
Can the embryo fashion itself? Is Conformity 
to Type produced by the matter or by the life, 
by the protoplasm or by the Type? Is organi- 
zation the cause of life or the effect of it? It 
is the effect of it. Conformity to Type, there- 
fore, is secured by the type. Christ makes the 
Christian. 

Men need only to reflect on the automatic 
processes of their natural body to discover that 
this is the universal law of Life. What does 
any man consciously do, for instance, in the 
matter of breathing? What part does he take 
in circulating the blood, in keeping up the 
rhythm of his heart? What control has he over 
growth? What man by taking thought can 
add a cubit to his stature? What part volun- 
tarily does man take in secretion, in digestion, 
in the reflex actions? In point of fact is he not 

20 Natural Law 



298 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

after all the veriest automaton, every organ 
of his body given him, every function arranged 
for him, brain and nerve, thought and sensa- 
tion, will and conscience, all provided for him 
ready made? And yet he turns upon his soul 
and wishes to organize that himself ! O prepos- 
terous and vain man, thou who couldest not 
make a finger nail of thy body, thinkest thou to 
fashion this wonderful, mysterious, subtle soul 
of thine after the ineffable Image? Wilt thou 
ever permit thyself to be conformed to the 
Image of the Son? Wilt thou, who canst not 
add a cubit to thy stature, submit to be raised 
by the Type- Life within thee to the perfect 
stature of Christ? 

This is a humbling conclusion. And there- 
fore men will resent it. Men will still experi- 
ment ''by works of righteousness which they 
have done" to earn the Ideal life. The doc- 
trine of Human Inability, as the Church calls 
it, has always been objectionable to men who 
do not know themselves. The doctrine itself, 
perhaps, has been partly to blame. While it 
has been often affirmed in such language as 
rightly to humble men, it has also been stated 
and cast in their teeth with words which could 
only insult them. Merely to assert dogmatic- 
ally that man has no power to move hand or 
foot to help himself toward Christ, carries no 
real conviction. The weight of human author- 
ity is always powerless, and ought to be 
where the intelligence is denied a rationale. 
In the light of modern science when men seek 
a reason for every thought of God or man, this 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 299 

old doctrine with its severe and almost in- 
human aspect— till rightly understood— must 
presently have succumbed. But to the biolo- 
gist it cannot die. It stands to him on the 
solid ground of Nature. It has a reason in 
the laws of life which must resuscitate it and 
give it another lease of years. Bird-Life 
makes the Bird. Christ- Life makes the Chris- 
tian. No man by taking thought can add a 
cubit to his stature. 

So much for the scientific evidence. Here 
is the corresponding statement of the truth 
from Scripture. Observe the passive voice in 
these sentences: *' Begotten of God;" ''The 
new man which is renewed in knowledge after 
the Image of Him that created him;" or this, 
*'We are changed into the same Image;" or 
this, ''Predestinate to be conformed to the 
Image of His Son " or again, "Until Christ 
be formed in you;" or, "Except a man be 
born again he cannot see the Kingdom of 
God;" "Except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of 
God." There is one outstanding verse which 
seems at first sight on the other side: "Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling;" but as one reads on he finds, as if the 
writer dreaded the very misconception, the 
complement, "For it is God which worketh in 
you both to will and to do of His good 
pleasure." 

It will be noticed in these passages, and in 
others which might be named, that the process 
of transformation is referred indifferently to 



300 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

the agency of each Person of the Trinity in 
turn. We are not concerned to take up this 
question of detail. It is sufficient that the 
transformation is wrought. 

Theologians, however, distinguish thus: the 
indirect agent is Christ, the direct influence is 
the Holy Spirit. In other words, Christ by 
His Spirit renews the souls of men. 

Is man, then, out of the arena altogether? 
Is he mere clay in the hands of the potter, a 
machine, a tool, an automaton? Yes and No. 
If he were a tool he would not be a man. If 
he were a man he would have something to do. 
One need not seek to balance what God does 
here, and what man does. But we shall attain 
to a sufficient measure of truth on a most deli- 
cate problem if we make a final appeal to the 
natural life. We find that in maintaining this 
natural life Nature has a share and man has a 
share. By far the larger part is done for us — 
the breathing, the secreting, the circulating of 
the blood, the building up of the organism. 
And although the part which man plays is a 
minor part, yet, strange to say, it is not less 
essential to the well-being, and even to the 
being of the whole. For instance, man has to 
take food. He has nothing to do with it after 
he has once taken it, for the moment it passes 
his lips it is taken in hand by reflex actions 
and handed on from one organ to another, his 
control over it, in the natural course of things, 
being completely lost. But the initial act was 
his. And without that nothing could have 
been done. Now whether there be an exact 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 301 

analogy between the voluntary and involun- 
tary functions in the body, and the correspond- 
ing processes in the soul, we do not at present 
inquire. But this will indicate, at least, that 
man has his own part to play. Let him choose 
Life ; let him daily nourish his soul ; let him 
forever starve the old life ; let him abide con- 
tinuously as a living branch in the Vine, and 
the True-Vine Life will flow into his soul; 
assimilating, renewing, conforming to Type, 
till Christ, pledged by His own law, be formed 
in him. 

We have been dealing with Christianity at its 
most mystical point. Mark here once more its 
absolute naturalness. The pursuit of the Type 
is just what all Nature is engaged in. Plant 
and insect, fish and reptile, bird and mammal 
— these in their several spheres are striving 
after the Type. To prevent its extinction, to 
ennoble it, to people earth and sea and sky 
with it ; this is the meaning of the Struggle 
for Life. And this is our life — to pursue the 
Type, to populate the world with it. 

Our religion is not all a mistake. We are 
not visionaries. We are not ''unpractical," as 
men pronounce us, when we worship. To try 
to follow Christ is not to be ''righteous over- 
much. " True men are not rhapsodizing when 
they preach; nor do those waste their lives 
who waste themselves in striving to extend the 
Kingdom of God on earth. This is what life 
is for. The Christian in his life-aim is in 
strict line with Nature. What man calls his 
supernatural is quite natural. 



302 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

Mark well also the splendor of this idea of 
salvation. It is not merely final ** safety, " to 
be forgiven sin, to evade the curse. It is not, 
vaguely, *'to get to heaven.'* It is to be con- 
formed to the Image of the Son. It is for 
these poor elements to attain the Supreme 
Beauty. The organizing Life being Eternal, so 
must this Beauty be immortal. Its progress 
towards the Immaculate is already guaranteed. 
And more than all there is here fulfilled the 
sublimest of all prophecies; not Beauty alone 
but Unity is secured by the type — Unity of 
man and man, God and man, God and Christ 
and man, till **all shall be one.** 

Could Science in its most brilliant anticipa- 
tions for the future of its highest organism 
ever have foreshadowed a development like 
this? Now that the revelation is made to it, it 
surely recognizes it as the missing point in 
Evolution, the climax to which all Creation 
tends. Hitherto Evolution had no future. It 
was a pillar with marvelous carving, growing 
richer and finer towards the top, but without 
a capital: a pyramid, the vast base buried in 
the inorganic, towering higher and higher, tier 
above tier, life above life, mind above mind, 
ever more perfect in its workmanship, more 
noble in its symmetry, and yet withal so much 
the more mysterious in its aspiration. The 
most curious eye, following it upwards, saw 
nothing. The cloud fell and covered it. Just 
what men wanted to see was hid. The work 
of the ages had no apex. But the work begun 
by Nature is finished by the Supernatural — as 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 303 

we are wont to call the higher natural. And 
as the veil is lifted by Christianity it strikes 
men dumb with wonder. For the goal of Evo- 
lution is Jesus Christ. 

The Christian life is the only life that will 
ever be completed. Apart from Christ the life 
of man is a broken pillar, the race of Men an 
unfinished pyramid. One by one in sight of 
Eternity all human Ideals fall short, one by 
one before the open grave all human hopes dis- 
solve. The Laureate sees a moment's light in 
Nature's jealousy for the Type; but that too 
vanishes. 

** *So careful of the type?' but no, 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone ; 
I care for nothing, all shall go.' " 

All shall go ? No, one Type remains. * * Whom 
He did foreknow He also did predestinate to 
be conformed to the Image of His Son. '* And 
*'When Christ who is our life shall appear, then 
shall ye also appear with Him in glory." 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 



305 

20 



"The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was 
never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, 
miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou 
even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal : work 
it out, therefrom, and working, believe, live, be free." 
— Carlyle. 



ao6 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 

*'Work out your own salvation. "—Paul. 

*'Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal 
which render its food and safety very easily attained, 
seem to lead as a rule to degeneration."— E. Ray 
Lankester. 

Parasites are the paupers of Nature. They 
are forms of life which will not take the trou- 
ble to find their own food, but borrow or steal 
it from the more industrious. So deep-rooted 
is this tendency in Nature, that plants may 
become parasitic — it is an acquired habit — as 
well as animals ; and both are found in every 
state of beggary, some doing a little for them- 
selves, while others, more abject, refuse even 
to prepare their own food. 

There are certain plants — the Dodder, for 
instance — which begin life with the best inten- 
tions, strike true roots into the soil, and really 
appear as if they meant to be independent for 
life. But after supporting themselves for a 
brief period they fix curious sucking discs into 
the stem and branches of adjacent plants. 
And after a little experimenting, the epiphyte 
finally ceases to do anything for its own sup- 
port, thenceforth drawing all its supplies ready- 
made from the sap of its host. In this parasitic 
state it has no need for organs of nutrition of 
its own, and Nature, therefore, takes them 

307 



308 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

away. Henceforth, to the botanist, the adult 
Dodder presents the degraded spectacle of a 
plant without a root, without a twig, without a 
leaf, and having a stem so useless as to be 
inadequate to bear its own weight. 

In the Mistletoe the parasitic habit has 
reached a stage in some respects lower still. 
It has persisted in the downward course for so 
many generations that the young forms even 
have acquired the habit and usually begin life 
at once as parasites. The Mistletoe berries, 
which contain the seed of the future plant, are 
developed specially to minister to this degen- 
eracy, for they glue themselves to the branches 
of some neighboring oak or apple, and there 
the young Mistletoe starts as a dependent from 
the first. 

Among animals these lazzaroni are more 
largely represented still. Almost every animal 
is a living poor-house, and harbors one or 
more species of epizoa or entozoa, supplying 
them gratis, not only with a permanent home, 
but with all the necessaries and luxuries of 
life. 

Why does the naturalist think hardly of the 
parasites? Why does he speak of them as 
degraded, and despise them as the most igno- 
ble creatures in Nature? What more can an 
animal do than eat, drink, and die to-morrow? 
If under the fostering care and protection of a 
higher organism it can eat better, drink more 
easily, live more merrily, and die, perhaps not 
until the day after, why should it not do so? 
Is parasitism, after all, not a somewhat clever 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 809 

ruse? Is it not an ingenious way of securing 
the benefits of life while evading its responsi- 
bilities? And although this mode of livelihood 
is selfish, and possibly undignified, can it be 
said that it is immoral? 

The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Par- 
asitism, he will say, is one of the gravest 
crimes in Nature. It is a breach of the law of 
Evolution. Thou shalt evolve, thou shalt 
develop all thy faculties to the full, thou shalt 
attain to the highest conceivable perfection of 
thy race — and so perfect thy race — this is the 
first and greatest commandment of Nature. 
But the parasite has no thought for its race, 
or for perfection in any shape or form. It 
wants two things — food and shelter. How it 
gets them is of no moment. Each member 
lives exclusively on its own account, an isola- 
ted, indolent, selfish, and backsliding life. 

The remarkable thing is that Nature permits 
the community to be taxed in this way appar- 
ently without protest. For the parasite is a 
consumer pure and simple. And the *' Perfect 
Economy of Nature" is surely for once at fault 
when it encourages species numbered by thou- 
sands which produce nothing for their own or 
for the general good, but live, and live luxur- 
iously, at the expense of others? 

Now, when we look into the matter, we very 
soon perceive that instead of secretly counte- 
nancing this ingenious device by which para- 
sitic animals and plants evade the great law of 
the Struggle for Life, Nature sets her facf 
more sternly against it. And, instead of allow- 



SiO SEMI-PARASITISM. 

ing the transgressors to slip through her fin- 
gers, as one might at first suppose, she visits 
upon them the most severe and terrible penal- 
ties. The parasite, she argues, not only injures 
itself, but wrongs others. It disobeys the fun- 
damental law of its own being, and taxes the 
innocent to contribute to its disgrace. So that 
if Nature is just, if Nature has an avenging 
hand, if she holds one vial of wrath more full 
and bitter than another, it shall surely be 
poured out upon those who are guilty of this 
double sin. Let us see what form this punish- 
ment takes. 

Observant visitors to the sea-side, or let us 
say to an aquarium, are familiar with those 
curious little creatures known as Hermit-crabs. 
The peculiarity of the Hermits is that they 
take up their abode in the cast-off shell of some 
other animal, not unusually the whelk; and 
here, like Diogenes in his tub, the creature 
lives a solitary, but by no means an inactive 
life. 

The Pagurus, however, is not a parasite. 
And yet although in no sense of the word a 
parasite, this way of inhabiting throughout life 
a house built by another animal approaches so 
closely the parasitic habit, that we shall find it 
instructive as a preliminary illustration, to con- 
sider the effect of this free-house policy on the 
occupant. There is no doubt, to begin with, 
that, as has been already indicated, the habit 
is an acquired one. In its general anatomy the 
Hermit is essentially a crab. Now the crab is 
an animal which, from the nature of its envi- 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 311 

ronment, has to lead a somewhat rough and 
perilous life. Its days are spent amongst jag- 
ged rocks and boulders. Dashed about by 
every wave, attacked on every side by mon- 
sters of the deep, the crustacean has to protect 
itself by developing a strong and serviceable 
coat of mail. 

How best to protect themselves has been the 
problem to which the whole crab family have 
addressed themselves; and, in considering the 
matter, the ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit 
on the happy device of re-utilizing the habita- 
tions of the moUusks which lay around them in 
plenty, well-built, and ready for immediate 
occupation. For generations and generations, 
accordingly, the Hermit-crab has ceased to 
exercise itself upon questions of safety, and 
dwells in its little shell as proudly and securel)^ 
as if its second-hand house were a fortress 
erected especially for its private use. 

Wherein, then, has the Hermit suffered for 
this cheap, but real solution of a practical 
difficulty? Whether its laziness costs it any 
moral qualms, or whether its cleverness be- 
comes to it a source of congratulation, we do 
not know ; but judged from the appearance the 
animal makes under the searching gaze of the 
zoologist, its expedient is certainly not one to 
be commended. To the eye of Science its sin 
is written in the plainest characters on its very 
organization. It has suffered in its own ana- 
tomical structure just by as much as it has 
borrowed from an external source. Instead of 
being a perfect crustacean it has allowed cer- 



312 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

tain important parts of its body to deteriorate. 
And several vital organs are partially or wholly 
atrophied. 

Its sphere of life also is now seriously lim- 
ited; and by a cheap expedient to secure 
safety, it h'as fatally lost its independence. It 
is plain from its anatomy that the Hermit-crab 
was not always a Hermit-crab. It was meant 
for higher things. Its ancestors doubtless 
were more or less perfect crustaceans, though 
what exact stage of development was reached 
before the hermit habit became fixed in the 
species we cannot tell. But from the moment 
the creature took to relying on an external 
source it began to fall. It slowly lost in its 
own person all that it now draws from exter- 
nal aid. 

As an important item in the day's work, 
namely, the securing of safety and shelter, was 
now guaranteed to it, one of the chief induce- 
ments to a life of high and vigilant effort was at 
the same time withdrawn. A number of func- 
tions, in fact, struck work. The whole of the 
parts, therefore, of the complex organism 
which ministered to these functions, from lack 
of exercise, or total disuse, became gradually 
feeble; and ultimately, by the stern law that 
an unused organ must suffer a slow but inevit- 
able atrophy, the creature not only lost all 
power of motion in these parts, but lost the 
parts themselves, and otherwise sank into a 
relatively degenerate condition. 

Every normal crustacean, on the other hand, 
has the abdominal region of the body covered 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 313 

by a thick chitinous shell. In the Hermits 
this is represented only a by a thin and deli- 
cate membrane — of which the sorry figure the 
creature cuts when drawn from its foreign 
hiding-place is sufficient evidence. Any one 
who now examines further this half-naked and 
woe-begone object, will perceive also that the 
fourth and fifth pair of limbs are either so 
small and wasted as to be quite useless or alto- 
gether rudimentary; and, although certainly 
the additional development of the extremity 
of the tail into an organ for holding on to its 
extemporized retreat may be regarded as a 
slight compensation, it is clear from the whole 
structure of the animal that it has allowed 
itself to undergo severe Degeneration. 

In dealing with the Hermit-crab, in short, 
we are dealing with a case of physiological 
backsliding. That the creature has lost any- 
thing by this process from a practical point of 
view is not now argued. It might fairly be 
shown, as already indicated, that its freedom 
is impaired by its cumbrous eko-skeleton, and 
that, in contrast with other crabs, who lead a 
free and roving life, its independence gener- 
ally is greatly limited. But from the physio- 
logical standpoint, there is no question that the 
Hermit tribe have neither discharged their 
responsibility to Nature nor to themselves. If 
the end of life is merely to escape death, and 
serve themselves, possibly they have done 
well ; but if it is to attain an ever-increasing 
perfection, then are they backsliders, indeed. 
A zoologist's verdict would be that by this act 



314 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

they have forfeited to some extent their place 
in the animal scale. An animal is classed as 
low or high according as it is adapted to less 
or more complex conditions of life. This is 
the true standpoint from which to judge all 
living organisms. Were perfection merely a 
matter of continual eating and drinking, the 
Amoeba — the lowest known organism — might 
take rank with the highest, Man, for the one 
nourishes itself and saves its skin almost as 
completely as the other. But judged by the 
higher standard of Complexity, that is, -by 
greater or lesser adaptation to more or less 
complex conditions, the gulf between them is 
infinite. 

We have now received a preliminary idea, 
although not from the study of a true parasite, 
of the essential principles involved in a parasit- 
ism. And we may proceed to point out the 
correlative in the moral and spiritual spheres. 
We confine ourselves for the present to one 
point. The difference between the Hermit- 
crab and a true parasite is, that the former has 
acquired a semi-parasitic habit only with refer- 
ence to safety. It may be that the Hermit 
devours as a preliminary the accommodating 
molluscs whose tenement it covets; but it 
would become a real parasite only on the sup- 
position that the whelk was of such size as to 
keep providing for it throughout life, and that 
the external and internal organs of the crab 
should disappear, while it lived henceforth, by 
simple imbibition, upon the elaborated juices 
of its host. All the moUusk provides, however, 



SEMI-PARASITISM. ' 315 

for the crustacean in this instance is safety, 
and, accordingly, in the meantime we limit our 
application to this. The true parasite presents 
us with an organism so much more degraded 
in all its parts, that its lessons may well be 
reserved until we have paved the way to 
understand the deeper bearings of the subject. 

The spiritual principle to be illustrated in 
the meantime stands thus: Any principle 
which secures the safety of the individual 
without personal effort or the vital exercise of 
faculty is disastrous to moral character. We 
do not begin by attempting to define words. 
Were we to define truly what is meant by 
safety or salvation, we should be spared fur- 
ther elaboration, and the law would stand out 
as a sententious commonplace. But we have 
to deal with the ideas of safety as these are 
popularly held, and the chief purpose at this 
stage is to expose what may be called the Par- 
asitic Doctrine of Salvation. The phases of 
religious experience about to be described may 
be unknown to many. It remains for those 
who are familiar with the religious conceptions 
of the masses to determine whether or not we 
are wasting words. 

What is meant by the Parasitic Doctrine of 
Salvation one may, perhaps, best explain by 
sketching two of its leading types. The first 
is the doctrine of the Church of Rome; the 
second, that represented by the narrower 
Evangelical Religion. We take these relig- 
ions, however, not in their ideal form, with 
which possibly we should have little quarrel. 



316 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

but in their practical working, or in the form 
in which they are held especially by the rank 
and file of those who belong respectively to 
these communions. For the strength or weak- 
ness of any religious system is best judged 
from the form in which it presents itself to, and 
influences the common mind. 

No more perfect or more sad example of 
semi-parasitism exists than in the case of those 
illiterate thousands who, scattered everywhere 
throughout the habitable globe, swell the lower 
ranks of the Church of Rome. Had an organ- 
ization been specially designed, indeed, to in- 
duce the parasitic habit in the souls of men, 
nothing better fitted to its disastrous end could 
be established than the system of Roman 
Catholicism. Roman Catholicism offers to the 
masses a molluscan shell. They have simply 
to shelter themselves within its pale and they 
are ''safe.*' But what is this "safe"? It is an 
external safety — the safety of an institution. 
It is a salvation recommended to men by all 
that appeals to the motives in most common 
use with the vulgar and the superstitious, but 
which has as little vital connection with the 
individual soul as the dead whelk's shell with 
the living Hermit. Salvation is a relation at 
once vital, personal, and spiritual. This is 
mechanical and purely external. And this is, 
of course, the final secret of its marvelous suc- 
cess and world-wide power. A cheap religion 
is the desideratum of the human heart ; and 
an assurance of salvation at the smallest possi- 
ble cost forms the tempting bait held out to a 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 317 

conscience-stricken world by the Romish 
Church. Thousands, therefore, who have never 
been taught to use their faculties in "working 
out their own salvation," thousands who will 
not exercise themselves religiously, and who 
yet cannot be without the exercises of relig- 
ions intrust themselves in idle faith to that 
venerable house of refuge which for centuries 
has stood between God and man. A Church 
which has harbored generations of the elect, 
whose archives enshrine the names of saints, 
whose foundations are consecrated with mar- 
tyr's blood — shall it not afford a sure asylum 
for any soul which would make its peace with 
God? So, as the Hermit into the moUuscan 
shell, creeps the poor soul within the pale of 
Rome, seeking, like Adam in the garden, to 
hide its nakedness from God. 

Why does the true lover of men restrain not 
his lips in warning his fellows against this and 
all other priestly religion? It is not because 
he fails to see the prodigious energy of the 
Papal See, or to appreciate the many noble 
types of Christian manhood nurtured within its 
pale. Nor is it because its teachers are often 
corrupt and its system of doctrine inadequate 
as a representation of the Truth — charges 
which have to be made more or less against all 
religions. But it is because it ministers falsely 
to the deepest need of man, reduces the end of 
religion to selfishness, and offers safety with- 
out spirituality. That these, theoretically, are 
its pretensions, we do not affirm; but that its 
practical working is to induce in man, and in 



318 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

its worst forms, the parasitic habit, is testified 
by results. No one who has studied the religf- 
ion of the Continent upon the spot, has failed 
to be impressed with the appalling spectacle 
of tens of thousands of unregenerate men shel- 
tering themselves, as they conceive it for Eter- 
nity, behind the Sacraments of Rome. 

There is no stronger evidence of the inborn 
parasitic tendency in man in things religious 
than the absolute complacency with which 
even cultured men will hand over their eternal 
interests to the care of a Church. We can 
never dismiss from memory the sadness with 
which we once listened to the confession of a 
certain foreign professor: ''I used to be con- 
cerned about religion," he said in substance, 
'*but religion is a great subject. I was very 
busy: there was little time to settle it for my- 
self. A Protestant, my attention was called to 
the Roman Catholic religion. It suited my 
case. And instead of dabbling in religion for 
myself, I put myself in its hands. Once a 
year," he concluded, ''I go to mass." These 
were the words of one whose work will live in 
the history of his country, one, too, who knew 
all about parasitism. Yet, though he thought 
it not, this is parasitism in its worst and most 
degrading form. Nor, in spite of its intellec- 
tual, not to say moral, sin, is this an extreme 
or exceptional case. It is a case which is 
being duplicated every day in our own 
country, only here the confession is expressed 
v^ith a candor which is rare in company with 
actions betraying so signally the want of it. 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 319 

The form of parasitism exhibited by a cer- 
tain section of the narrower Evangelical school 
is altogether different from that of the Church 
of Rome. The parasite in this case seeks its 
shelter, not in a Church, but in a Doctrine or a 
Creed. Let it be observed again that we are 
not dealing with the Evangelical Religion, but 
only wath one of its parasitic forms — a form 
which will at once be recognized by all who 
know the popular Protestantism of this 
country. We confine ourselves also at present 
to that form which finds its encouragement in 
a single doctrine, that doctrine being a Doc- 
trine of the Atonement — let us say, rather, a 
perverted form of this central truth. 

The perverted Doctrine of the Atonemicnt, 
which tends to beget the parasitic habit, may 
be defined in a single sentence — it is very much 
because it can be defined in a single sentence 
that it is a perversion. Let us state it in a 
concrete form. It is put to the individual in 
the following syllogism: *' You believe Christ 
died for sinners; you are a sinner; therefore 
Christ died for you ; and hence you are saved. " 
Now what is this but another species of mollus- 
can shell? Could any trap for a benighted soul 
be more ingeniously planned? It is not super- 
stition that is appealed to this time; it is 
reason. The agitated soul is invited to creep 
into the convolutions of a syllogism, and en- 
trench itself bekind a Doctrine more venerable 
even than the Church. But words are mere 
chitine. Doctrines may have no more vital 
contact with the soul than priest or sacrament. 



320 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

no further influence on life and character than 
stone and lime. And yet the apostles of para- 
sitism pick a blackguard from the streets, pass 
him through this plausible formula, and turn 
him out a convert in the space of as many 
minutes as it takes to tell it. 

The zeal of these men, assuredly, is not to 
be questioned; their instincts are right, and 
their work is often not in vain. It is possible, 
too, up to a certain point, to defend this Salva- 
tion by Formula. Are these not the very 
words of Scripture? Did not Christ Himself 
say, **It is finished"? And is it not written, 
**By grace are ye saved through faith,'* ''Not 
of works, lest any man should boast," and He 
*'that believe th on the Son hath everlasting 
life"? To which, however, one m.ight also 
answer in the words of Scripture, "The Devils 
also believe," and "Except a man be born 
again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.'* 
But without seeming to make text refute text, 
let us ask rather what the supposed convert 
possesses at the end of the process. That 
Christ saves sinners, even blackguards from 
the street, is a great fact; and that the simple 
words of the street evangelist do sometimes 
bring this home to man with convincing power 
is also a fact. But in ordinary circumstances, 
when the inquirer's mind is rapidly urged 
through the various stages of the above piece 
of logic, he is left to face the future and blot 
out the past with a formula of words. 

To be sure these words may already convey a 
germ of truth, they may yet be filled in with a 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 321 

wealth of meaning and become a lifelong 
power. But we would state the case against 
Salvation by Formula with ignorant and un- 
warranted clemency did we for a moment con- 
vey the idea that this is always the actual 
result. The doctrine plays too well into the 
hands of the parasitic tendency to make it pos- 
sible that in more than a minority of cases the 
result is anything but disastrous. And it is 
disastrous not in that, sooner or later, after 
losing half their lives, those who rely on the 
naked syllogism come to see their mistake, but 
in that thousands never come to see it at all. 
Are there not men who can prove to you and 
to the world, by the irresistible logic of text, 
that they are saved, whom you know to be not 
only unworthy of the Kingdom of God — which 
we all are — but absolutely incapable of enter- 
ing it? The condition of membership in the 
Kingdom of God is well known ; who fulfil this 
condition and who do not, is not well known. 
And yet the moral test, in spite of the difficulty 
of its applications, will always, and rightly, be 
preferred by the world to the theological. 
Nevertheless, in spite of the world's verdict, 
the parasite is content. He is **safe. ** Years 
ago his mind worked through a certain chain 
of phrases in which the words *' believe" and 
'* saved'* were the conspicuous terms. And 
from that moment, by all Scriptures, by all 
logic, and by all theology, his future was guar- 
anteed. He took out, in short, an insurance 
policy, by which he was infallibly secured 
eternal life at death. This is not a matter to 

21 Natural Law 



323 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

make light of. We wish we were caricaturing 
instead of representing things as they are. 
But we carry with us all who intimately 
know the spiritual condition of the Narrow 
Church in asserting that in some cases at least 
its members have nothing more to show for 
their religion than .9. formula, a syllogism, a cant 
phrase, or an experience of some kind which 
happened long ago, and which men told them 
at the time was called Salvation. Need we 
proceed to formulate objections to the parasi- 
tism of Evangelicism? Between it and the Reli- 
gion of the Church of Rome there is an affinity 
as real as it is unsuspected. For one thing 
these religions are spiritually disastrous as well 
as theologically erroneous in propagating a 
false conception of Christianity. The funda- 
mental idea alike of the extreme Roman 
Catholic and extreme Evangelical Religions is 
Escape. Man's chief end is to '*get off." 
And all factors in religion, the highest and 
m.ost sacred, are degraded to this level. God, 
for example, is a Great Lawyer. Or He is the 
Almighty Enemy; it is from Him we have to 
**get off." Jesus Christ is the One who gets 
us off — a theological figure who contrives so to 
adjust matters federally that the way is clear. 
The Church in the one instance is a kind of 
conveyancing office where the transaction is 
duly concluded, each party accepting the 
other's terms ; in the other case, a species of 
sheep-pen where the flock awaits impatiently 
and indolently the final consummation. Gen- 
erally, the means are mistaken for the end, 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 323 

and the opening up of the possibility of spiritual 
growth becomes the signal to stop growing. 

Second, these being cheap religions, are in- 
evitably accompanied by a cheap life. Safety 
being guaranteed from the first, there remains 
nothing else to be done. The mechanical way 
in which the transaction is effected, leaves the 
soul without stimulus, and the character 
remiains untouched by the moral aspects of the 
sacrifice of Christ. He who is unjust is unjust 
still ; he who is unholy is unholy still. Thus 
the whole scheme ministers to the Degenera- 
tion of Organs. For here, again, by just as 
much as the organism borrows mechanically 
from an external source, by so much exactly 
does it lose in its own organization. Whatever 
rest is provided by Christianity for the child- 
ren of God, it is certainly never contemplated 
that it should supersede personal effort. And 
any rest which ministers to indifference is im- 
moral and unreal — it makes parasites and not 
men. Just because God worketh in him, as 
the evidence and triumph of it, the true child 
of God work out his own salvation — works it 
out having really received it — not as a light 
thing, a superfluous labor, but with fear and 
trembling as a reasonable and indispensable 
service. 

If it be asked, then, shall the parasite be 
saved or shall he not, the answer is that the 
idea of salvation conveyed by the question 
makes a reply all but hopeless. But if by sal- 
vation is meant, a trusting in Christ in order 
to likeness to Christ, in order to that holiness 



324 SEMI-PARASITISM. 

without which no man shall see the Lord, the 
reply is that the parasite's hope is absolutely 
vain. So far from ministering to growth, para- 
sitism ministers to decay. So far from min- 
istering to holiness, that is to wholeness, para- 
sitism ministers to exactly the opposite. One 
by one the spiritual faculties droop and die, 
one by one from lack of exercise the muscles 
of the soul grow weak and flaccid, one by one 
the moral activities cease. So from him thai 
hath not, is taken away that which he hath, 
and after a few years of parasitism there is 
nothing left to save. 

If our meaning up to this point has beer 
sufficiently obscure to make the objection no\^ 
possible that this protest against Parasitism h 
opposed to the doctrines of Free Grace, we 
cannot hope in a closing sentence to free the 
argument from a suspicion so ill-judged. The 
adjustment between Faith and Works does noi 
fall within our province now. Salvation trul) 
is the free gift of God, but he who really knowi 
how much this means knows — and just because 
it means so much — how much of consequeni 
action it involves. With the central doctrine: 
of grace the whole scientific argument is in toe 
wonderful harmony to be found wanting here 
The natural life, not less than the eternal, h 
the gift of God. But life in either case is th( 
beginning of a growth and not the end o: 
grace. To pause where we should begin, t( 
retrograde where we should advance, to seel 
a mechanical security that we may cover inertia 
and find a wholesale salvation in which there ij 
no personal sanctification — this is Parasitism. 



PARASITISM. 



325 



**And so I live, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject. 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare ; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man, 
Not left in God's contempt apart, 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, 
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. 
* * * * * 

Thank God, no paradise stands barred 

To entry, and I find it hard 

To be a Christian, as I said.'* — Browning. 



PARASITISM. 

•'Work out your own salvation." — Paul. 

"Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even World- 
kin. Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest 
infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it. in God's 
name !" — Carlyle. 

From a study of the habits and organization 
of the family of Hermit-crabs we have already 
gained some insight into the nature and effects 
of parasitism. But the Hermit-crab, be it re- 
membered, is in no real sense a parasite. And 
before we can apply the general principle fur- 
ther we must address ourselves briefly to the 
examination of a true case of parasitism. 

We have not far to seek. Within the body 
of the Hermit-crab a minute organism may 
frequently be discovered resembling, when 
magnified, a miniature kidney-bean. A bunch 
of root-like processes hangs from one side, and 
the extremities of these are seen to ramify in 
delicate films through the living tissues of the 
' crab. This simple organism is known to the 
naturalist as a Sacculina; and though a full- 
grown animal, it consists of no more parts than 
those just named. Not a trace of structure is 
to be detected within this rude and all but 
inanimate form ; it possesses neither legs, nor 
eyes, nor mouth, nor throat, nor stomach, nor 
any other organs, external or internal. This 

327 



328 PARASITISM. 

Sacculina is a typical parasite. By means of 
its twining and thef tnous roots it imbibes auto- 
matically its nourishment ready-prepared from 
the body of the crab. It boards indeed entirely 
at the expense of its host, who supplies it lib- 
erally with food and shelter and everything 
else it wants. So far as the result to itself is 
concerned this arrangement 'may seem at first 
sight satisfactory enough ; but when we inquire 
into the life history of this small creature we 
unearth a career of degeneracy all but unparal- 
leled in nature. 

The most certain clue to what nature meant 
any animal to become is to be learned from its 
embryology. Let us, therefore, examine for a 
moment the earliest positive stage in the 
development of the Sacculina. When the em- 
bryo first makes its appearance it bears not the 
remotest resemblance to the adult animal. A 
different name even is given to it by the biolo- 
gist, who knows it at this period as a Nauplius. 
This minute organism has an oval body, sup- 
plied with six well-jointed feet by means of 
which it paddles briskly through the water. 
For a time it leads an active and independent 
life, industriously securing its own food and 
escaping enemies by its own gallantry. But 
soon a change takes place. The hereditary taint 
of parasitism is in its blood, and it proceeds to 
adapt itself to the pauper habits of its race. 
The tiny body first doubles in upon itself, and 
from the two front limbs elongated filaments 
protrude. Its four hind limbs entirely disap- 
pear, and twelve short-forked swimming organs 



PARASITISM. 329 

temporarily take their place. Thus strangely 
metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in 
search of a suitable host, and in an evil hour, 
by that fate which is always ready to accommo- 
date the transgressor, is thrown into the com- 
pany of the Hermit-crab. With its two Alimen- 
tary processes — which afterwards develop into 
the root-like organs— it penetrates the body; 
the sac-like form is gradually assumed; the 
whole of the swimming feet drop off, — they 
will never be needed again, — and the animal 
settles down for the rest of its life as a parasite. 

One reason which makes a zoologist certain 
that the Sacculina is a degenerate type is, that 
in almost all other instances of animals which 
begin life in the Nauplius-form — and there are 
several — the Nauplius develops through higher 
and higher stages, and arrives finally at the 
high perfection displayed by the shrimp, lob- 
ster, crab, and other crustaceans. But instead 
of rising to its opportunities, the sacculine 
Dauplius having reached a certain point turned 
back. It shrunk from the struggle for life, 
and beginning probably by seeking shelter 
from its host went on to demand its food; and 
so falling from bad to worse, became in time 
an entire dependent. 

In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold 
crime. It was first a disregard of evolution, 
and second, which is practically the same thing, 
an evasion of the great law of work. And the 
revenge of Nature was therefore necessary. 
It could not help punishing the Sacculina for 
violated law, and the punishment, according 

22 Natural Law 



330 PARASITISM. 

to the strange and noteworthy way in whict 
Nature usually punishes, was meted out b;y 
natural processes, carried on within its owr 
organization. Its punishment was simply thai 
it was a Sacculina — that it was a Sacculine 
when it might have been a Crustacean. Instead 
of being a free and independent organism high 
in structure, original in action, vital witli 
energy, it deteriorated into a torpid and all but 
amorphous sac confined to perpetual imprison- 
ment and doomed to a living death. "Any 
new set of conditions,*' says Ray Lankester, 
''occurring to an animal which render its food 
and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as 
a rule to degeneration ; just as an active healthy 
man sometimes degenerates when he becomes 
suddenly possessed of a fortune ; or as Rome 
degenerated when possessed of the riches of 
the ancient world. The habit of parasitism 
clearly acts upon animal organization in this 
way. Let the parasitic life once be secured, 
arid away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; the 
active, high-gifted crab, insect, or annelid may 
become a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and 
laying eggs.'** 

There could be no more impressive illustra- 
tion than this of what with entire appropriate- 
ness one might call "the physiology of back- 
sliding. *' We fail to appreciate the meaning 
of spiritual degeneration or detect the terrible 
nature of the consequences only because they 
evade the eye of sense. But could we investi- 
gate the spirit as a living organism, or study 

* "Degeneration," by E. Ray Lankester, p. 33. 



PARASITISM. 331 

the soul of the backslider on principles of com- 
parative anatomy, we should have a revelation 
of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere 
sin of carelessness as to growth and work, 
which must revolutionize our ideas of prac- 
tical religion. There is no room for the doubt 
even that what goes on in the body does not 
with equal certainty take place in the spirit 
under the corresponding conditions. 

The penalty of backsliding is not something 
unreal and vague, some unknown quantity 
which may be measured out to us disproportion- 
ately, or which perchance, since God is good, 
we may altogether evade. The consequences 
are already marked within the structure of the 
soul. So to speak, they are physiological. 
The thing affected by our indifference or by 
our indulgence is not the book of final judg- 
ment but the present fabric of the soul. The 
punishment of degeneration is simply degen- 
eration — the loss of functions, the decay of 
organs, the atrophy of the spiritual nature. It 
is well known that the recovery of the back- 
slider is one of the hardest problems in spirit- 
ual work. To reinvigorate an old organ seems 
more difficult and hopeless than to develop a 
new one ; and the backslider's terrible lot is to 
have to retrace with enfeebled feet each step 
of the way along which he strayed ; to make up 
inch by inch the leeway he has lost, carrying 
with him a dead- weight of acquired reluctance, 
and scarce knowing whether to be stimulated 
or discouraged by the oppressive memory of 
the previous fall. 



332 PARASITISM. 

We are not, however, to discuss at present 
the physiology of backsliding. Nor need we 
point out at greater length that parasitism is 
always and indissolubly accompanied by 
degeneration. We wish rather to examine one 
or two leading tendencies of the modern relig- 
ious life which directly or indirectly induce the 
parasitic habit and bring upon thousands of 
unsuspecting victims such secret and appalling 
penalties as have been named. 

Two main causes are known to the biologist 
as tending to induce the parasitic habit. These 
are, first, the temptation to secure safety with- 
out the vital exercise of faculties, and, second, 
the disposition to find food without earning it. 
The first, which we have formally considered, 
is probably the preliminary stage in most cases. 
The animal, seeking shelter, finds unexpectedly 
that it can also thereby gain a certain measure 
of food. Compelled in the first instance, per- 
haps by stress of circumstances, to rob its host 
of a meal or perish, it gradually acquires the 
habit of drawing all its supplies from the same 
source, and thus becomes in time a confirmed 
parasite. Whatever be its origin, however, it 
is certain that the main evil of parasitism is 
connected with the further question of food. 
Mere safety with Nature is a secondary, 
though by no means an insignificant, consider- 
ation. And while the organism forfeits a part 
of its organization by any method of evading 
enemies which demands no personal effort, the 
most entire degeneration of the whole system 



PARASITISM. 333 

follows the neglect or abuse of the functions of 
nutrition. 

The direction in which we have to seek the 
wider application of the subject will now 
appear. We have to look into those cases in 
the moral and spiritual sphere in which the 
functions of nutrition are either neglected or 
abused. To sustain life, physical, mental, 
moral, or spiritual, some sort of food is essen- 
tial. To secure an adequate supply each organ- 
ism also is provided with special and appropri- 
ate faculties. But the final gain to the organ- 
ism does not depend so much on the actual 
amount of food procured as on the exercise 
required to obtain it. In one sense the exer- 
cise is only a means to an end, namely, the 
finding food ; but in another and equally real 
sense, the exercise is the end, the food the 
means to attain that. Neither is of permanent 
use without the other, but the correlation 
between them is so intimate that it were idle to 
say that one is more necessary than the other. 
Without food exercise is impossible, but with- 
out exercise food is useless. 

Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is 
in order to exercise — in order especially to that 
further progress and maturity which only cease- 
less activity can promote. Now food too easily 
acquired means food without that accompani- 
ment of discipline which is infinitely more val- 
uable than the food itself. It means the possi- 
bility of a life which is a mere existence. It 
leaves the organism in statu quo, undeveloped, 
immature, low in the scale of organization and 



334 PARASITISM. 

with a growing tendency to pass from the state 
of equilibrium to that of increasing degenera- 
tion. What an organism is depends upon what 
it does ; its activities make it. And if the stim- 
ulus to the exercise of all the innumerable 
faculties concerned in nutrition be withdrawn 
by the conditions and circumstances of life 
becoming, or being made to become, too easy, 
there is first an arrest of development, and 
finally a loss of the parts themselves. If, in 
short, an organism does nothing in that rela- 
tion it is nothing. 

We may, therefore, formulate the general 
principle thus: Any principle which secures 
food to the individual without the expenditure 
of work is injurious, and accompanied by the 
degeneration and loss of parts. 

The social and political analogies of this law, 
which have been casually referred to already, 
are sufficiently familiar to render any further 
development in these directions superfluous. 
After the eloquent preaching of the Gospel of 
Work by Thomas Carl5''le, this century at least 
can never plead that one of the most important 
moral bearings of the subject has not been 
duly impressed upon it. All that can be said 
of idleness generally might be fitly urged in sup- 
port of this great practical truth. All nations 
which have prematurely passed away, buried 
in graves dug by their own effeminacy; all 
those individuals who have secured a hasty 
wealth by the chances of speculation; all chil- 
dren of fortune; all victims of inheritance; all 
social sponges; all satellites of the court; all 



PARASITISM. 335 

beggars of the market-place— all these are liv- 
ing and unlying witnesses to the unalterable 
retributions of the law of parsitism. But it is 
when we come to study the working of the prin- 
ciple in the religious sphere that we discover 
the full extent of the ravages which the par- 
asitic habit can make on the souls of men. We 
can only hope to indicate here one or two of the 
things in modern Christianity which minister 
most subtly and widely to this as yet all but 
unnamed sin. 

We begin in what may seem a somewhat 
unlooked-for quarter. One of the things in 
the religious world which tends most strongly 
to induce the parasitic habit is Going to Church. 
Church-going itself every Christian will rightly 
consider an invaluable aid to the ripe develop- 
ment of the spiritual life. Public worship has 
a place in the national religious life so firmly 
established that nothing is ever likely to shake 
its influence. So supreme, indeed, is the 
ecclesiastical system in all Christian countries 
that with thousands the religion of the Church 
and the religion of the individual are one. 
But just because of its high and unique place 
in religious regard, does it become men from 
time to time to inquire how far the Church is 
really ministering to the spiritual health of the 
immense religious community which looks to 
it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us 
here reluctantly to expose some secret abuses 
of this venerable system, let it be well under- 
stood that these are abuses, and not that the 



336 PARASITISM. 

sacred institution itself is being violated by the 
attack of an impious hand. 

The danger of church-going largely depends 
on the form of worship, but it may be affirmed 
that even the most perfect Church affords to 
all worshipers a greater or less temptation to 
parasitism. It consists essentially in the deputy- 
work or deputy- worshipinseparable from church 
or chapel ministrations. One man is set apart 
to prepare a certain amount of spiritual truth 
for the rest. He, if he is a true man, gets all 
the benefits of original work. He finds the 
truth, digests it, is nourished and enriched by 
it before he offers it to his flock. To a large 
extent it will nourish and enrich in turn a num- 
ber of his hearers. But still they will lack 
something. The faculty of selecting truth at 
first hand and appropriating it for one's self is 
a lawful possession to every Christian. Rightly 
exercised it conveys to him truth in its freshest 
form ; it offers him the opportunity of verify- 
ing doctrines for himself; it makes religion 
personal; it deepens and intensifies the only 
convictions that are worth deepening, those, 
namely, which are honest; and it supplies the 
mind with a basis of certainty in religion. 
But if all one's truth is derived by imbibition 
from the Church, the faculties for receiving 
truth are not only undeveloped but one's whole 
view of truth becomes distorted. He who 
abandons the personal search for truth, under 
whatever pretext, abandons truth. The very 
word truth, by becoming the limited posses- 
sion of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; 



PARASITISM. 337 

and faith, which can only be founded on truth, 
gives way to credulity, resting; on mere opinion! 

In those churches especially where all parts 
of the worship are subordinated to the sermon, 
this species of parasitism is peculiarly encour- 
aged. What is meant to be a stimulus to 
thought becomes the substitute for it. The 
hearer never really learns, he only listens. 
And while truth and knowledge seem to in- 
crease, life and character are left in arrear. 
Such truth, of course, and such knowledge, 
are a mere seeming. Having cost nothing, 
they come to nothing. The organism acquires 
a growing immobility, and finally exists in a 
state of entire intellectual helplessness and 
inertia. So the parasitic Church-member, the 
literal *' adherent," comes not merely to live 
only within the circle of ideas of his minister, 
but to be content that hi« minister has these 
ideas — like the literary parasite who fancies he 
knows everything because he has a good 
library. 

Where the worship, again, is largely liturgi- 
cal, the danger assumes an even more serious 
form, and it acts in some such way as this. 
Every sincere man wh*^ sets out in the Chris- 
tian race begins by attemptirg to exercise the 
spiritual faculties for himself. The young life 
throbs in his veins, and he sets himself to the 
further progress with earnest purpose and res- 
olute will. For a time he bids fair to attain a 
high and original development. But the 
temptation to relax the always difficult effort 
at spirituality is greater than he knows. The 

22 



338 PARASITISM. 

'*carnal mind" itself is * 'enmity against God," 
and the antipathy, or the deadlier apathy 
within, is unexpectedly encouraged from that 
very outside source from which he anticipates 
the greatest help. Connecting himself with a 
Church he is no less interested than surprised 
to find how rich is the provision there for 
every part of his spiritual nature. Each serv- 
ice satisfies or surfeits. Twice or even three 
times a week, this feast is spread for him. 
The thoughts are deeper than his own, the 
faith keener, the worship loftier, the whole 
ritual more reverent and splendid. What 
more natural than that he should gradually 
exchange his personal religion for that of the 
congregation? What more likely than that a 
public religion should by insensible stages sup- 
plant his individual faith? What more simple 
than to content himself with the warmth of 
another's soul? What more tempting than to 
give up private prayer for the easier worship 
of the liturgy or of the church? What, in 
short, more natural than for the independent, 
free-moving, growing Sacculina to degenerate 
into the listless, useless, pampered parasite of 
the pew? The very means he takes to nurse 
his personal religion often come in time to 
wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, or 
even enthusiastically, on the lips of eloquence, 
his senses now stirred by ceremony, now 
soothed by music, the parasite of the pew 
enjoys his weekly worship — his character un- 
touched, his will unbraced, his crude soul 
unquickened and unimproved. Thus, instead 



PARASITISM. 339 

of ministering to the growth of individual 
members, and very often just in proportion to 
the superior excellence of the provision made 
for them by another, doeS this gigantic system 
of deputy-nutrition tend to destroy develop- 
ment and arrest the genuine culture of the 
soul. Our churches overflow with members 
who are mere consumers. Their interest in 
religion is purely parasitic. Their only spirit- 
ual exercise is the automatic one of imbibition, 
the clergyman being the faithful Hermit-crab 
who is to be depended on every Sunday for at 
least a wreck's supply. 

A physiologist would describe the organism 
resulting from such a process as a case of 
''arrested development." Instead of having 
learned to pray, the ecclesiastical parasite 
becomes satisfied with being prayed for. His 
transactions with the Eternal are effected by 
commission. His work for Christ is done by a 
paid deputy. His whole life is a prolonged 
indulgence in the bounties of the Church; and 
surely — in some cases at least the crowning 
irony — he sends for the minister when he lies 
down to die. 

Other signs and consequences of this species 
of parasitism soon become very apparent. The 
first symptom is idleness. When a Church is 
off its true diet it is off its true work. Hence 
one explanation of the hundreds of large and 
influential congregations ministered to from 
week to week by men of eminent learning and 
earnestness, which yet do little or nothing in 
the line of these special activities for which all 



340 PARASITISM. 

churches exist. " An outstanding man at the 
head of a huge, useless and torpid congrega- 
tion is always a puzzle. But is the reason not 
this, that the congregation gets too good food 
too cheap? Providence has mercifully deliv- 
ered the Church from too many great men in 
her pulpits, but there are enough in every 
country-side to play the host disastrously to a 
large circle of otherwise able-bodied Christian 
people, who, thrown on their own resources, 
might fatten themselves and help others. 
There are compensations to a flock for a poor 
minister after all. Where the fare is indiffer- 
ent those who are really hungry will exert 
themselves to procure their own supply. 

That the Church has indispensable functions 
to discharge to the individual is not denied ; 
but taking into consideration the universal 
tendency to parasitism in the human soul, it 
is a grave question whether in some cases it 
does not really effect more harm than good. 
A dead church certainly, a church having no 
reaction on the community, a church without 
propagative power in the world, cannot be 
other than a calamity to all within its borders. 
Such a church is an institution, first for mak- 
ing, then for screening parasites: and instead 
of representing to the world the Kingdom of 
God on earth, it is despised alike by godly and 
by godless men as the refuge for fear and for- 
malism and the nursery of superstition. 

And this suggests a second and not less prac- 
tical evil of a parasitic piety — that it presents 
to the world a false conception of the religion 



PARASITISM. 341 

of Christ. One notices with a frequency which 
may well excite alarm that the children of 
church-going parents often break away as they 
grow in intelligence, not only from church- 
connection, but from the whole system of fam- 
ily religion. In some cases this is doubtless 
due to natural perversity, but in others it cer- 
tainly arises from the hoUowness of the out- 
ward forms which pass current in society and 
at home for vital Christianity. These spuri- 
ous forms, fortunately or unfortunately, soon 
betray themselves. How little there is in 
them becomes gradually apparent. And rather 
than indulge in a sham the budding skeptic, 
as the first step, parts with the form, and in 
nine cases out of ten concerns himself no 
further to find a substitute. Quite deliberately, 
quite honestly, sometimes with real regret and 
even at personal sacrifice, he takes up his posi- 
tion, and to his parent's sorrow and his church's 
dishonor forsakes forever the faith and religion 
of his fathers. Who will deny that this is a 
true account of the natural history of much 
modern skepticism? A formal religion can 
never hold its own in the nineteenth century. 
It is better that it should not. We must either 
be real or cease to be. We must either give 
up our Parasitism or our sons. 

Any one who will take the trouble to inves- 
tigate a number of cases, where whole families 
of outwardly godly parents have gone astray, 
will probably find that the household religion 
had either some palpable defect, or belonged 
essentially to the parasitic order. The popular 



342 PARASITISM. 

belief that the sons of clergymen turn out 
worse than those of the laity is, of course, 
without foundation ; but it may also probably 
be verified that in the instances where clergy- 
men's sons notoriously discredit their father's 
ministry, that ministry in a majority of cases 
will be found to be professional and theological 
rather than human and spiritual. Sequences 
in the moral and spiritual world follow more 
closely than we yet discern the great law of 
Heredity. The Parasite begets the Parasite — 
only in the second generation the offspring are 
sometimes sufficiently wise to make the dis- 
covery, and honest enough to proclaim it. 

We now pass on to the consideration of 
another form of Parasitism which, though 
closely related to that just discussed, is of 
sufficient importance to justify a separate ref- 
erence. Appealing to a somewhat smaller 
circle, but affecting it not less disastrously, is 
the Parasitism induced by certain abuses of 
Systems of Theology. 

In its own place, of course. Theology is no 
more to be dispensed with than the Church. 
In every perfect religious system three great 
departments must always be represented — crit- 
icism, dogmatism, and evangelism. Without 
the first there is no guarantee of truth, without 
the second no defense of truth, and without 
the third no propagation of truth. But when 
these departments become mixed up, when 
their separate functions are forgotten, when 
one is made to do duty for another, or where 
either is developed by the church or the indi- 



PARASITISM. 343 

vidual at the expense of the rest, the result is 
fatal. The particular abuse, however, of 
which we have now to speak, concerns theVen- 
dency in orthodox communities, first to exalt 
orthodoxy above all other elements in religion, 
and secondly, to make the possession of sound 
beliefs equivalent to the possession of truth. 

Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a con- 
stant practice is less in vogue than in a former 
age, but there are still large numbers whose 
only contact with religion is through theologi- 
cal forms. The method is supported by a 
plausible defense. What is doctrine but a 
compressed form of truth, systematized by 
able and pious men, and sanctioned by the 
imprimatur of the Church? If the greatest 
minds of the Church's past, having exercised 
themselves profoundly upon the problems of 
religion, formulated as with one voice a system 
of doctrine, why should the humble inquirer 
not gratefully accept it? Why go over the 
ground again? Why with his dim light should 
he betake himself afresh to Bible study and 
with so great a body of divinity already com- 
piled, presume himself to be still a seeker after 
truth? Does not Theology give him Bible 
truth in reliable, convenient and, moreover, 
in logical propositions? There it lies extended 
to the last detail in the tomes of the Fathers or 
abridged in a hundred modern compendia 
ready-made to his hand, all cut and dry, guar- 
anteed sound and wholesome, why not use it? 

Just because it is all cut and dry. Just 
because it is ready-made. Just because it lies 



344 PARASITISM. 

there in reliable, convenient and logical prop- 
ositions. The moment you appropriate truth 
in such a shape you appropriate a form. You 
cannot cut and dry truth. You cannot accept 
truth ready-made without it ceasing to nourish 
the soul as truth. You cannot live on theolog- 
ical forms without becoming a Parasite and 
ceasing to be a man. 

There is no worse enemy to a living Church 
than a propositional theology, with the latter 
controlling the former by traditional authority. 
For one does not then receive the truth for 
himself, he accepts it bodily. He begins the 
Christian life set up by his Church with a 
stock-in-trade which has cost him nothing, and 
which, though it may serve him all his life, is 
just exactly worth as much as his belief in his 
Church. This possession of truth, moreover, 
thus lightly won, is given to him as infallible. 
It is a system. There is nothing to add to it. 
At his peril let him question or take from it. 
To start a convert in life with such a principle 
is unspeakably degrading. All through life 
instead of working towards truth he must work 
from it. An infallible standard is a temptation 
to a mechanical faith. Infallibility always par- 
alyzes. It gives rest; but it is the rest of stag- 
nation. Men perform one great act of faith at 
the beginning of their life, then have done 
with it forever. All moral, intellectual and 
spiritual effort is over; and a cheap theology 
ends in a cheap life. 

The same thing that makes men take refuge 
in the Church of Rome makes them take refuge 



PARASITISM. 345 

in a set of dogmas. Infallibility meets the 
deepest desire of man, but meets it in the most 
fatal form. Men deal with the hunger after 
truth in two ways. First by Unbelief— which 
crushes it by blind force; or, secondly, by 
resorting to some external source credited with 
Infallibility — which lulls it to sleep by blind 
faith. The effect of a doctrinal theology is 
the effect of Infallibility. And the wholesale 
belief in such a system, however accurate it 
may be — grant even that it were infallible — is 
not Faith though it always gets that name. 
It is mere Credulity. It is a complacent and 
idle rest upon authority, not a hard-earned, 
self-obtained, personal possession. The moral 
responsibility here, besides, is reduced to noth- 
ing. Those who framed the Thirty-nine 
Articles or the Westminster Confession are 
responsible. And anything which destroys- 
responsibility, or transfers it, cannot be other 
than injurious in its moral tendency and use- 
less in itself. 

It may be objected perhaps that this state- 
ment of the paralysis spiritual and mental 
induced by Infallibility applies also to the 
Bible. The answer is that though the Bible is 
infallible, the Infallibility is not in such a form 
as to become a temptation. There is the wid- 
est possible difference between the form of 
truth in the Bible and the form in theology. 

In theology truth is propositional — tied up 
in neat parcels, systematized, and arranged in 
logical order. The Trinity is an intricate 
doctrinal problem. The Supreme Being is 



346 PARASITISM. 

discussed in terms of philosophy. The Atone- 
ment is a formula which is to be demonstrated 
like a proposition in Euclid. And Justification 
is to be worked out as a question of jurisprud- 
ence. There is no necessary connection 
between these doctrines and the life of him 
who holds them. They make him orthodox, 
not necessarily righteous. They satisfy the 
intellect but need not touch the heart. It 
does not, in short, take a religious man to be a 
theologian. It simply takes a man with fair 
reasoning powers. This man happens to apply 
these powers to theological subjects — but in no 
other sense than he might apply them to 
astronomy or physics. But truth in the Bible 
is a fountain. It is a diffused nutrient, so 
diffused that no one can put himself off with 
the form. It is reached not by thinking, but 
by doing. It is seen, discerned, not demon- 
strated. It cannot be bolted whole, but must 
be slowly absorbed into the system. Its 
vagueness to the mere intellect, its refusal to 
be packed into portable phrases, its satisfying 
unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its find- 
ing of us, its mystical hold of us, these are the 
tokens of its infinity. 

Nature never provides for man's wants in 
any direction, bodily, mental, or spiritual, in 
such a form as that he can simply accept her 
gifts automatically. She puts all the mechan- 
ical powers at his disposal — but he must make 
his lever. She gives him com, but he must 
grind it. She elaborates coal but he must dig 
for it. Corn is perfect, all the products of 



PARASITISM. 847 

Nature are perfect, but he has everything to 
do to them before he can use them. So with 
truth ; it is perfect, infallible. But he cannot 
use it as it stands. He must work, think sep- 
arate, dissolve, absorb, digest; and most of 
these he must do for himself and within him- 
self. If it be applied that this is exactly what 
theology does, we answer it is exactly what it 
does not. It simply does what the green grocer 
does when he arranges his apples and plums in 
his shop- window. He may tell me a magnum 
bonum from a Victoria, or a Baldwin from a 
Newton Pippin. But he does not help me to 
eat it. His information is useful, and for 
scientific horticulture essential. Should a 
sceptical pomologist deny that there was such 
a thing as a Baldwin, or mistake it for a New- 
ton Pippin, we should be glad to refer to him ; 
but if we were hungry, and an orchard were 
handy, we should not trouble him. Truth in 
the Bible is an orchard rather than a museum. 
Dogmatism will be very valuable to us when 
scientific necessity makes us go to the museum. 
Criticism will be very useful in seeing that 
only fruit-bearers grow in the orchard. But 
truth in the doctrinal form is not natural, pro- 
per, assimilable food for the soul of man. 

Is this a plea then for doubt? Yes, for that 
philosophic doubt which is the evidence of a 
faculty doing its own work. It is more neces- 
sary for us to be active than to be orthodox. To 
be orthodox is what we wish to be, but we can 
only truly reach it by being honest, by being 
original, by seeing with our own eyes, by 



348 PARASITISM. 

believing with our own heart. ^*An idle life,*' 
says Goethe, "is death anticipated." Better 
far be burned at the stake of Public Opinion 
than die the living death of Parasitism. 
Better an aberrant theology than a suppressed 
organization. Better a little faith dearly won, 
better launched alone on the infinite bewilder- 
ment of Truth, than perish on the splendid 
plenty of the richest creeds. Such a doubt is 
no self-willed presumption. Nor, truly exer- 
cised, will it prove itself, as much as doubt, 
the synonym for sorrow. It aims at a lifelong 
learning, prepared for any sacrifice of will, yet 
for none of independence; at that high pro- 
gressive education which yields rest in work 
and work in rest, and the development of 
immortal faculties in both ; at that deeper faith 
which believes in the vastness and variety of 
the revelations of God, and their accessibility 
to all obedient hearts. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



349 



"I judge of the order of the world, although I know 
not its end, because to judge of this order I only need 
mutually to compare the parts, to study their functions, 
their relations, and to remark their concert. I know not 
why the universe exists, but I do not desist from seeing 
how it is modified ; I do not cease to see the intimate 
agreement by which the beings that compose it render a 
mutual help. I am like a man who should see for the 
first time an open watch, who should not cease to ad- 
mire the workmanship of it, although he knows not the 
use of the machine, and had never seen dials. I do not 
know, he would say, what all this is for, but I see that 
each piece is made for the others ; I admire the worker 
in the detail of his work, and I am very sure that all these 
wheel- works only go thus in concert for a common end 
which I cannot perceive.*' Rousseau. 



350 



CLASSIFICATION. 

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. "—Christ. 

•*In early attempts to arrange organic beings in some 
systematic manner, we see at first a guidance by con- 
spicuous and simple characters, and a tendency towards 
arrangement in linear order. In successively later 
attempts, we see more regard paid to combinations of 
character which are essential but often inconspicuous, 
and a gradual abandonment of a linear arrangement." 
— Herbert Spencer. 

On one of the shelves in a certain museum 
lie two small boxes filled with earth. A low 
mountain in Arran has furnished the first ; the 
contents of the second come from the Island of 
Barbadoes. When examined with a pocket 
lens, the Arran earth is found to be full of 
small objects, clear as crystal, fashioned by- 
some mysterious geometry into forms of ex- 
quisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a 
natural glass; and the prevailing shape is a 
six-sided prism capped at either end by little 
pyramids modeled with consummate grace. 

When the second specimen is examined, the 
revelation is, if possible, more surprising. 
Here, also, is a vast assemblage of small glassy 
or porcellaneous objects built up into curious 
forms. The material, chemically, remains the 
same, but the angles of pyramid and prism 

351 



352 CLASSIFICATION. 

have given place to curved lines, so that the 
contour is entirely different. The appearance 
is that of a vast collection of microscopic urns, 
goblets, and vases, each richly ornamented 
with small sculptured discs or perforations 
which are disposed over the pure white surface 
in regular belts and rows. Each tiny urn is 
chiseled into the most faultless proportion, 
and the whole presents a vision of magic 
beauty. 

Judged by the standard of their loveliness 
there is little to choose between these two sets 
of objects. Yet there is one cardinal difference 
between them. They belong to different 
worlds. The last belong to the living world, 
the former to the dead. The first are crystals, 
the last are shells. 

No power on earth can make these little urns 
of the PolycystincB except Life. We can melt 
them down in the laboratory, but no ingenuity 
of chemistry can reproduce their sculptured 
forms. We are sure that Life has formed 
them, however, for tiny creatures allied to 
those which made the Barbadoes' earth are 
living still, fashioning their fairy palaces of 
flint in the same mysterious way. On the 
other hand, chemistry has no difficulty in mak- 
ing these crystals. We can melt down this 
Arran earth and reproduce the pyramids and 
prisms in endless numbers. Nay, if we do melt 
it down, we cannot help reproducing the pyra- 
mid and the prism. There is a six-sidedness, 
as it were, in the very nature of this substance 
which will infallibly manifest itself if the crys- 



CLASSIFICATION. 353 

talHzing substance only be allowed fair play 
This six-sided tendency is its Law of Crystal- 
lization— a law of its nature which it cannot 
resist. But in the crystal there is nothing at 
all corresponding to Life. There is simply an 
inherent force which can be called into action 
at any moment, and which cannot be separated 
from the particles in which it resides. The 
crystal may be ground to pieces, but this force 
remains intact. And even after being reduced 
to powder, and running the gauntlet of every 
process in the chemical laboratory, the moment 
the substance is left to itself under possible 
conditions it will proceed to recrystallize anew. 
But if the Polycystine urn be broken, no inor- 
ganic agency can build it up again. So far as 
any inherent urn-building power, analogous 
to the crystalline force, is concerned, it might 
lie there in a shapeless mass forever. . That 
which modeled it at first is gone from it. It 
was Vital ; while the force which built the crys- 
tal was only Molecular. 

From an artistic point of view^ this distinction 
is of small importance. -^sthetically, the 
Law of Crystallization is probably as useful in 
ministering to natural beauty as Vitality. 
What are more beautiful than the crystals of a 
snowflake? Or what frond of fern or feather 
of bird can vie with the tracery of the frost 
upon a window-pane? Can it be said that the 
lichen is more lovely than the striated crystals 
of the granite on which it grows, or the moss 
on the mountain-side more satisfying than the 
hidden amethyst annd cairngorm in the rock 

23 Natural Law 



354 CLASSIFICATION. 

beneath? Or is the botanist more astonished 
when his microscope reveals the architecture 
of spiral tissue in the stem of a plant, or the 
mineralogist who beholds for the first time the 
chaos of beauty in the sliced specimen of some 
common stone? So far as beauty goes the 
organic world and the inorganic are one. 

To the man of science, however, this identity 
of beauty signifies nothing. His concern, in 
the first instance, is not with the forms but with 
the natures of things. It is no valid answer to 
him, when he asks the difference between the 
moss and the cairngorm, the frost-work and the 
fern, to be assured that both are beautiful. 
For no fundamental distinction in Science de- 
pends upon beauty. He wants an answer in 
terms of chemistry, are they organic or inor- 
ganic? or in terms of biology, are they living 
or dead. But when he is told that the one is 
living and the other dead, he is in possession 
of a characteristic and fundamental scientific 
distinction. From this point of view, however 
much they may possess in common of material 
substance and beauty, they are separated from 
one another by a wide and unbridged gulf. 
The classification of these forms, therefore, de- 
pends upon the standpoint, and we should pro- 
nounce them like or unlike, related or unre- 
lated, according as we judged them from the 
point of view of Art or Science. 

The drift of these introductory paragraphs 
must already be apparent. We propose to in- 
quire whether among men, clothed apparently 
with a common beauty of character, there may 



CLASSIFICATION. 355 

not yet be distinctions as radical as between the 
crystal and the shell; and, further, whether the 
current classification of men, based upon Moral 
Beauty, is wholly satisfactory either from the 
standpoint of Science or of Christianity. Here, 
for example, are two characters, pure and ele- 
vated, adorned with conspicuous virtues, stirred 
by lofty impulses, and commanding a sponta- 
neous admiration from all who look on them — 
may not this similarity of outward form be 
accompanied by a total dissimilarity of inward 
nature? Is the external appearance the truest 
criterion of the ultimate nature? Or, as in the 
crystal and the shell, may there not exist dis- 
tinctions more profound and basal? The dis- 
tinctions drawn between men, in short, are 
commonly based on the outward appearance of 
goodness or badness, on the ground of moral 
beauty or moral deformity — is this classification 
scientific? Or is there a deeper distinction 
between the Christian and the not-a-Christian 
as fundamental as that between the organic 
and the inorganic? 

There can be little doubt, to begin with, that 
with the great majority of people religion is re- 
garded as essentially one with morality. 
Whole schools of philosophy have treated the 
Christian Religion as a question of beauty, 
and discussed its place among other systems of 
ethics. Even those systems of theology which 
profess to draw a deeper distinction have rarely 
succeeded in establishing it upon any valid 
basis, or seem even to have made that distinc- 
tion perceptible to others. So little, indeed. 



a56 CLASSIFICATION. 

has the rationale of the science of religion 
been understood that there is still no more 
unsatisfactory province in theology than where 
morality and religion are contrasted, and the 
adjustment attempted between moral philos- 
ophy and what are known as the doctrines of 
grace. 

Examples of this confusion are so numerous 
that if one were to proceed to proof he would 
have to cite almost the entire European phi- 
losophy of the last three hundred years. From 
Spinoza downward through the w^hole natural- 
istic school, Moral Beauty is persistently re- 
garded as synonymous with religion and the 
spiritual life. The most earnest thinking of 
the present day is steeped in the same confu- 
sion. We have even the remarkable spectacle 
presented to us just now of a sublime Morality- 
Religion divorced from Christianity altogether, 
and wedded to the baldest form of materialism. 
It is claimed, moreover, that the moral scheme 
of this high atheism is loftier and more perfect 
than that of Christianity, and men are asked 
to take their choice as if the morality were 
everything, the Christianity or the atheism 
which nourished it being neither here nor there. 
Others, again, studying this moral beauty 
carefully, have detected a something in its 
Christian forms which has compelled them to 
declare that a distinction certainly exists. But 
in scarcely a single instance is the gravity of 
the distinction more than dimly apprehended. 
Few conceive of it as other than a difference 
of degree, or could give a more definite account 



CLASSIFICATION. 357 

of it than Mr. Matthew Arnold's "Relig-ion is 
morality touched by Emotion" — an utterance 
significant mainly as the testimony of an acute 
mind that a distinction of some kind does exist. 
In a recent Symposium where the question as 
to ''The influence upon Morality of a decline 
in Religious Belief," was discussed at length 
by writers of whom this century is justly 
proud, there appears scarcely so much as a 
recognition of the fathomless chasm separating 
the leading terms of debate. 

If beauty is the criterion of religion, this 
view of the relation of religion to morality is 
justified. But what if there be the same differ- 
ence in the beauty of two separate characters 
that there is between the mineral and the 
shell? What if there be a moral beauty and a 
spiritual beauty? What answer shall we get 
if we demand a more scientific distinction 
between characters than that based on mere 
outv/ard form? It is not enough from the 
standpoint of biological religion to say of two 
characters that both are beautiful. For, again, 
no fundamental distinction in Science depends 
upon beauty. We ask an answer in terms of 
biology, are they flesh or spirit ; are they liv- 
ing or dead? 

If this is really a scientific question, if it is a 
question not of moral philosophy only, but of 
biology, we are compelled to repudiate beauty 
as the criterion of spirituality. It is not, of 
course, meant by this that spirituality is not 
morally beautiful. Spirituality must be mor- 
ally very beautiful— so much so that popularly 



358 CLASSIFICATION. 

one is justified in judging of religion by its 
beauty. Nor is it meant that morality is not 
a criterion. All that is contended for is that, 
from the scientific standpoint, it is not the cri- 
terion. We can judge of the crystal and the 
shell from many other standpoints besides 
those named, each classification having an 
importance in its own sphere. Thus we might 
class them according to their size and weight, 
their percentage of silica, their use in the arts, 
or their commercial value. Each science or 
art is entitled to regard them from its own 
point of view; and when the biologist an- 
nounces his classification he does not interfere 
with those based on other grounds. Only, 
having chosen his standpoint, he is bound to 
frame his classification in terms of it. 

It may be well to state emphatically, that in 
proposing a new classification — or rather, in 
reviving the primitive one — in the spiritual 
sphere we leave untouched, as of supreme 
value in its own province, the test of morality. 
Morality is certainly a test of religon — for most 
practical purposes the very best test. And so 
far from tending to depreciate morality, the 
bringing into prominence of the true basis is 
entirely in its interests — in the interests of a 
moral beauty, indeed, infinitely surpassing the 
highest attainable perfection on merely natural 
lines. 

The warrant for seeking a further classifica- 
tion is twofold. It is a principle in science that 
classification should rest on the most basal 
characteristics. To determine what these are 



CLASSIFICATION. 359 

may not always be easy, but it is at least evi- 
dent that a classification framed on the ulti- 
mate nature of organisms must be more dis- 
tinctive than one based on external characters. 
Before the principles of classification were un- 
derstood, organisms were invariably arranged 
according to some merely external resem- 
blance. Thus plants were classed according to 
size as Herbs, Shrubs, and Trees; and animals 
according to their appearance as Birds, Beasts, 
and Fishes. The Bat upon this principle was 
a bird, the Whale a fish; and so thoroughly 
artificial were these early systems that animals 
were often tabulated among the plants, and 
plants among the animals. *'In early at- 
tempts/' says Herbert Spencer, *'to arrange 
organic beings in some systematic manner, we 
see at first a guidance by conspicuous and sim- 
ple characters, and a tendency toward arrange- 
ment in lineal order. In successively later 
attempts, we see more regard paid to combina- 
tions of characters which are essential but often 
inconspicuous ; and a gradual abandonment of a 
lineal arrangement for an arrangement in 
divergent groups and redivergent sub-groups.* 
Almost all the natural sciences have already 
passed through these stages; and one or two 
which rested entirely on external characters 
have all but ceased to exist — Conchology, for 
example, which has yielded its place to Mal- 
acology. Following in the wake of the other 
sciences, the classifications of Theology may 
have to be remodeled in the same way. The 

* "Principles of Biology," p. 294. 



360 CLASSIFICATION. 

popular classification, whatever its merits from 
a practical point of view, is essentially a classi- 
fication based on Morphology. The whole 
tendency of science now is to include along 
with morphological considerations the pro- 
founder generalizations of Physiology and 
Embryology. And the contribution of the 
latter science especially has been found so 
important that biology henceforth must look 
for its classification largely to Embryological 
character. 

But apart from the demand of modern scien- 
tific culture it is palpably foreign to Christian- 
ity, not merely as a Philosophy, but as a Biol- 
og'y? to classify men only in terms of the 
former. And it is somewhat remarkable that 
the writers of both the Old and New Testaments 
seem to have recognized the deeper basis. 
The favorite classification of the Old Testa- 
ment was into *'the nations which knew God" 
and ** the nations which knew not God." — a 
distinction which we have formerly seen to be, 
at bottom, biological. In the New Testament 
again the ethical characters are more promi- 
nent, but the cardinal distinctions based on 
regeneration, if not always ^-^^.ctually referred 
to, are throughout kept in view, both in the 
sayings of Christ and in the Epistles. 

What, then, is the deeper distinction drawn 
by Christianity? What is the essential differ- 
ence between the Christian and the not-a-Chris- 
tian, between the spiritual beauty and the 
moral beauty? It is the distinction between 
the Organic and the Inorganic. Moral beauty 



CLASSIFICATION. 361 

is the product of the natural man, spiritual 
beauty of the spiritual man. And these two, 
according to the law of Biogenesis, are separ- 
ated from one another by the deepest line 
known to Science. This Law is at once the 
foundation of Biology and of Spiritual religion. 
And the whole fabric of Christianity falls into 
confusion if we attempt to ignore it. The 
Law of Biogenesis, in fact, is to be regarded as 
the equivalent in biology of the First Law of 
Motion in physics : Every body continues in 
its state of rest or of uniform motion in a 
straight line, except in so far as it is compelled 
by forces to change that state. The first Law 
of Biology is: That which is Mineral is Min- 
eral ; that which is Flesh is Flesh ; that which 
is Spirit is Spirit. The mineral remains in 
the inorganic world until it is seized upon by 
a something called Life outside the inorganic 
world; the natural man remains the natural 
man, until a Spiritual Life from without the 
natural life seizes upon him, regenerates him, 
changes him into a spiritual man. The peril 
of the illustration from the law of motion will 
not be felt at least by those who appreciate the 
distinction between Physics and Biology, 
between Energy and Life. The change of 
state here is not as in physics a mere change of 
direction, the affections directed to a new 
object, the will into a new channel. The 
change involves all this, but is something 
deeper. It is a change of nature, a regenera- 
tion, a passing from death into life. Hence 
relatively to this higher life the natural life is 

24 Natural Law 



362 CLASSIFICATION. 

no longer Life, but Death, and the natural man 
from the standpoint of Christianity is dead. 
Whatever assent the mind may give to this 
proposition, however much it has been over- 
looked in the past, however it compares with 
casual observation, it is certain that the 
Foimder of the Christian religion intended this 
to be the keystone of Christianity. In the 
proposition, That which is flesh is flesh, and 
that which is spirit is spirit, Christ formulates 
the first law of biological religion, and lays the 
basis for a final classification. He divides men 
into two classes, the living and the not-living. 
And Paul afterwards carries out the classifica- 
tion consistently, making his entire system 
depend on it, and throughout arranging men, 
on the one hand as spiritual, on the other as 
carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction. 

Suppose now it be granted for a moment 
that the character of the not-a-Christian is as 
beautiful as that of the Christian. This is 
simply to say that the crystal is as beautiful as 
the organism. One is quite entitled to hold 
this; but what he is not entitled to hold is 
that both in the same sense are living. He 
that hath the Son has Life, and he that hath 
not the Son of God has not Life. And in the 
face of this law, no other conclusion is possible 
than that that which is flesh remains flesh. 
No matter how great the development of 
beauty, that which is flesh is withal flesh. 
The elaborateness or the perfection of the 
moral development in any given instance can 
do nothing to break down this distinction. 



CLASSIFICATION. 363 

Man IS a moral animal, and can, and ought to, 
arrive at great natural beauty of character. 
But this is simply to obey the law of his nature 
— the law of his flesh ; and no progress along 
that line can project him into the spiritual 
sphere. If any one choose to claim that the 
mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural 
moral beauty, is all he covets, he is entitled to 
his claim. To be good and true, pure and 
benevolent in the moral sphere, are high, and, 
so far, legitimate objects of life. If he delib- 
erately stop here, he is at liberty to do so. 
But what he is not entitled to do is to call him- 
self a Christian, or to claim to discharge the 
functions peculiar to the Christian life. His 
morality is mere crystallization, the crystalliz- 
ing forces having had fair play in his develop- 
ment. But these forces have no more touched 
the sphere of Christianity than the frost on 
the window-pane can do more than simulate 
the external forms of life. And if he considers 
that the high development to which he has 
reached may pass by an insensible transition 
into spirituality, or that his moral nature of 
itself may flash into the flame of regenerate 
Life, he has to be reminded that in spite of the 
apparent connection of these things from one 
standpoint, from another there is none at all, 
or none discoverable by us. On the one hand, 
there being no such thing as Spontaneous Gen- 
eration, his moral nature, however it may en- 
courage it, cannot generate Life ; while, on the 
other, his high organization can never in itself 



364 CLASSIFICATION. 

result in Life, Life being always the cause of 
organization and never the effect of it. 

The practical question may now be asked, is 
this distinction palpable? Is it a mere conceit 
of Science, or what humanjinterests attach to 
it? If it cannot be proved that the resulting 
moral or spiritual beauty is higher in the one 
case than in the other, the biological distinc- 
tion is useless. And if the objection is pressed 
that the spiritual man has nothing further to 
effect in the direction of morality, seeing 
that the natural man can successfully com- 
pete with him, the questions thus raised 
become of serious significance. That objec- 
tion would certainly be fatal which could show 
that the spiritual world was not as high in its 
demand for a lofty morality as the natural; 
and that biology would be equally false and 
dangerous which should in the least encourage 
the view that "without holiness" a man could 
'*see the Lord." These questions accordingly 
we must briefly consider. It is necessary to 
premise, however, that the difficulty is not 
peculiar to the present position. This is sim- 
ply the old difficulty of distinguishing spirit- 
uality and morality. 

In seeking whatever light Science may have 
to offer as to the difference between the nat- 
ural and the spiritual man, we first submit the 
question to Embryology. And if its actual 
contribution is small, we shall at least be 
indebted to it for an important reason why the 
difficulty should exist at all. That there is 
grave difficulty in deciding between two given 



CLASSIFICATION. 365 

characters, the one natural, the other spiritual, 
is conceded. But if we can find a sufficient 
justification for so perplexing a circumstance, 
the fact loses weight as an objection, and the 
whole problem is placed on a different footing. 

The difference on the score of beauty between 
the crystal and the shell, let us say once more, 
is imperceptible. But fix attention for a 
moment, not upon their appearance, but upon 
their possibilities, upon their relation to the 
future, and upon their place in evolution. The 
crystal has reached its ultimate stage of devel- 
opment. It can never be more beautiful than 
it is now. Take it to pieces and give it the 
opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and it 
will just do the same thing over again. It will 
form itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on 
repeating this same form adinfinitum as often 
as it is dissolved, and without ever improving 
by a hair's-breadth. Its law of crystallization 
allows it to reach this limit, and nothing else 
within its kingdom can do any more for it. In 
dealing with the crystal, in short we are deal- 
ing with the maximum beauty of the inorganic 
world. But in dealing with the shell, we are 
not dealing with the maximum achievement of 
the organic world. In itself it is one of the 
humblest forms of the invertebrate sub-king- 
dom of the organic world; and there are other 
forms within this kingdom so different from 
the shell in a hundred respects that to mistake 
them would simply be impossible. 

In dealing with a man of fine moral charac- 
ter, again, we are dealing with the highest 



366 CLASSIFICATION. 

achievement of the organic kingdom. But in 
dealing with a spiritual man we are dealing 
with the lowest form of life in the spiritual 
world. To contrast the two, therefore, and 
marvel that the one is apparently so little bet- 
ter than the other, is unscientific and unjust 
The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, 
hidden as yet in his earthly chrysalis-case, 
while the natural man has the breeding and 
evolution of ages represented in his character. 
But what are the possibilities of this spiritual 
organism? What is yet to emerge from this 
chrysalis-case? The natural character finds its 
limits within the organic sphere. But who is 
to define the limits of the spiritual? Even now 
it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it 
contains some prophecy of its future glory. 
But the point \o mark is, that it doth not yet 
appear what it shall be. 

The want of organization, thus, does not sur- 
prise us. All life begins at the Amoeboid 
stage. Evolution is from the simple to the 
complex; and in every case it is some time 
before organization is advanced enough to 
admit of exact classification. A naturalist's 
only serious difficulty in classification is when 
he comes to deal with low or embryonic forms. 
It is impossible, for instance, to mistake an 
oak for an elephant ; but at the bottom of the 
vegetable series, and at the bottom of the ani- 
mal series, there are organisms of so doubtful 
a character that it is equally impossible to dis- 
tinguish them. So formidable, indeed, has 
been this difficulty that Haeckel has had to 



CLASSIFICATION. 3G7 

propose an intermediate regnum protistiacm to 
contain those forms the rudimentary character 
of which makes it impossible to apply the 
determining tests. 

We mention this merely to show the diffi- 
culty of classification and not for analogy ; for 
the proper analogy is not between vegetable 
and animal forms, whether high or low, but 
between the living and the dead. And here 
the difficulty is certainly not so great. By 
suitable tests it is generally possible to distin- 
guish the organic from the inorganic. The 
ordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, 
and innumerable forms are assigned by the 
popular judgment to the inorganic world which 
are nevertheless undoubtedly alive. And it is 
the same in the spiritual world. To a cursory 
glance these rudimentary spiritual forms may 
not seem to exhibit the phenomena of Life, and 
therefore the living and the dead may be often 
classed as one. But let the appropriate scien- 
tific tests be applied. In the almost amor- 
phous organism, the physiologist ought already 
to be able to detect the symptoms of a dawning 
life. And further research might even bring 
to light some faint indication of the lines along 
which the future development was to proceed. 
Now it is not impossible that among the tests 
for Life there may be some which may fitly be 
applied to the spiritual organism. We may 
therefore at this point hand over the problem 
to Physiology. 

The test for Life are of two kinds. It is re- 
markable that one of them was proposed, in 



368 CLASSIFICATION. 

the spiritual sphere, by Christ. Foreseeing the 
difficulty of determining the characters and 
functions of rudimentary organisms, He sug- 
gested that the point be decided by a further 
evolution. Time for development was to be 
allowed, during which the marks of Life, if 
any, would become more pronounced, while in 
the meantime judgment was to be suspended. 
*'Let both grow together," he said, ''until the 
harvest.*' This is a thoroughly scientific test. 
Obviously, however, it cannot assist us for the 
present — except in the way of enforcing 
extreme caution in attempting any classifica- 
tion at all. 

The second test is at least not so manifestly 
impracticable. It is to apply the ordinary 
methods by which biology attempts to distin- 
guish the organic from the inorganic. The 
characteristics of Life, according to Physiology, 
are four in number — Assimilation, Waste, 
Reproduction, and Spontaneous Action. If an 
organism is found to exercise these functions, 
it is said to be alive. Now these tests, in a 
spiritual sense, might fairly be applied to the 
spiritual man. The experiment would be a 
delicate one. It might not be open to every 
one to attempt it. This is a scientific ques- 
tion; and the experiment would have to be 
conducted under proper conditions and by 
competent persons. But even on the first state- 
ment it will be plain to all who are familiar 
with spiritual diagnosis that the experiment 
could be made, and especially on oneself, with 
some hope of success. Biological considera- 



CLASSIFICATION. 369 

tions, however, would warn us not to expect 
too much. Whatever be the inadequacy of 
Morphology, Physiology can never be studied 
apart from it ; and the investigation of function 
merely as function is a task of extreme diffi. 
culty. Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, *^We 
have next to no power of tracing up the gen- 
esis of a function considered purely as a func- 
tion — no opportunity of observing the progres- 
sively-increasing quantities of a given action 
that have arisen in any order of organisms. 
In nearly all cases we are able only to establish 
the greater growth of the part which v/e have 
found performs the action, and to infer that 
greater action of the part has accompanied 
greater grov\^th of it."* Such being the case, 
it would serve no purpose to indicate the details 
of a barely possible experiment. We are 
merely showing, at the moment, that the 
question "How do I know that I am alive" is 
not, in the spiritual sphere, incapable of solu- 
tion. One might, nevertheless, single out 
some distinctively spiritual function and ask 
him. self if he consciously discharged it. The 
discharging of that function is, upon biological 
principles, equivalent to being alive, and there- 
fore the subject of the experiment could cer- 
tainly come to some conclusion as to his place 
on a biological scale. The real significance of 
his actions on the moral scale might be less 
easy to determine, but he could at least tell 
where he stood as tested by the standard of life 
— he would know whether he was living or 

* "Principles of Biology," vol. ii. pp. 222, 223. 
24 



870 CLASSIFICATION. 

dead. After all, the best test of Life is just 
living. And living consists, as we have 
formerly seen, in corresponding with Environ- 
ments. Those therefore who find within 
themselves, and regularly exercise, the facul- 
tie's for corresponding with the Divine Envi- 
ronment, may be said to live the Spiritual Life. 
That this Life also, even in the embryonic 
organism, ought already to betray itself to 
others, is certainly what one would expect. 
Every organism has its own reaction upon 
Nature, and the reaction of the spiritual 
organism upon the community must be looked 
for. In the absence of any such reaction, in 
the absence of any token that it lived for a 
higher purpose, or that its real interests were 
those of the Kingdom to which it professed to 
belong, we should be entitled to question its 
being in that Kingdom. It is obvious that each 
Kingdom has its own ends and interests, its 
own functions to discharge in Nature. It is 
also a law that every organism lives for its 
kingdom. And man's place in nature, or his 
position among the kingdoms, is to be decided 
by the characteristic functions habitually dis- 
charged by him. Now when the habits of cer- 
tain individuals are closely observed, when the 
total effect of their life and work, with regard 
to the community, is gauged — as carefully 
observed and gauged as the influence of certain 
individuals in a colony of ants might be 
observed and gauged by Sir John Lubbock — 
there ought to be no difficulty in deciding 
whether they are living for the Organic or for 



CLASSIFICATION. 371 

the Spiritual; in plainer language, for the 
world or for God, The question of Kingdoms, 
at least, would be settled without mistake! 
The place of any given individual in his own 
Kingdom is a different matter. That is a ques- 
tion possibly for ethics. But from the biolog- 
ical standpoint, if a man is living for the world 
it is immaterial how well he lives for it. He 
ought to live well for it. However important 
it is for his own Kingdom, it does not afiEect 
his biological relation to the other Kingdom 
whether his character is perfect or imperfect. 
He may even to some extent assume the out- 
ward form of organism belonging to the higher 
Kingdom ; but so long as his reaction upon the 
world is the reaction of his species, he is to be 
classed with his species, so long as the bent of 
his life is in the direction of the world, he 
remains a worldling. 

Recent botanical and entomological re- 
searches have made Science familiar with 
what is termed Mimicry. Certain organisms 
in one Kingdom assume, for purposes of their 
own, the outward form of organisms belonging 
to another. This curious hypocrisy is practiced 
both by plants and animals, the object being 
to secure some personal advantage, usually 
safety, which would be denied were the organ- 
ism always to play its part in Nature in propria 
persona. Thus the Ceroxyhis laceratus of Borneo 
has assumed so perfectly the disguise of a 
moss-covered branch as to evade the attack of 
insectivorous birds; and others of the walking- 
stick insects and leaf-butterflies practice sim- 



272 CLASSIFICATION. 

ilar deceptions with great effrontery and suc- 
cess. It is a striking result of the indirect 
influence of Christianity, or of a spurious Chris- 
tianity, that the religious v/orld has come to be 
populated — how largely one can scarce venture 
to think — with mimetic species. In few cases, 
probably, is this a conscious deception. In 
many doubtless it is induced, as in Ceroxylus, 
by the desire for safety. But in a majority of 
instances it is the natural effect of the prestige. 
of a great system upon those who, coveting its 
benedictions, yet fail to understand its true 
nature, or decline to bear its profounder 
responsibilities. It is here that the test of Life 
becomes of supreme importance. No classifi- 
cation on the ground of form can exclude 
mimetic species, or discover them to them- 
selves. But if man's place among the King- 
doms is determined by his functions, a careful 
estimate of his life in itself and in its reaction 
upon surrounding lives, ought at once to 
betray his real position. No matter what may 
be the moral uprightness of his life, the honor- 
ableness of his career, or the orthodoxy of his 
creed, if he exercises the function of loving the 
world, that defines his world — he belongs to 
the Organic Kingdom. He cannot in that case 
belong to the higher Kingdom. *'If any man 
love the world, the love of the Father is not in 
him. *' After all, it is by the general bent of a 
man's life, by his heart-impulses and secret 
desires, his spontaneous actions and abiding 
motives, that his generation is declared. 

The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation 



CLASSIFICATION. 373 

from the world, uncompromising' allegiance to 
the Kingdom of God, entire surrender of body, 
soul, and spirit of Christ— these are truths 
which rise into prominence from time to time, 
become the watchword of insignificant parties, 
rouse the church to attention and the world to 
opposition, and die down ultimately for want 
of lives to live them. The few enthusiasts 
who distinguish in these requirements the 
essential conditions of entrance into the King- 
dom of Christ are overpowered by the weight 
of numbers, who see nothing more in Christi- 
anity than a mild religiousness, and who 
demand nothing more in themselves or in their 
fellow-Christians than the participation in a 
conventional worship, the acceptance of tradi- 
tional beliefs, and the living of an honest life. 
Yet nothing is more certain than that the 
enthusiasts are right. Any impartial survey 
— such as the unique analysis in ''Ecce Homo" 
■ — of the claims of Christ and of the nature of 
His society, will convince any one who cares to 
make the inquiry of the outstanding difference 
between the system of Christianity in the origi- 
nal contemplation and its representations in 
modern life. Christianity marks the advent of 
what is simply a new Kingdom. Its distinc- 
tions from the Kingdom below it are funda- 
mental. It demands from its members activ- 
ities and responses of an altogether novel order. 
It is, in the conception of its Founder, a King- 
dom for which all its adherents must henceforth 
exclusively live and work, and which opens its 
gates alone upon those who, having counted 



374 CLASSIFICATION. 

the cost, are prepared to follow it if need be to 
the death. The surrender Christ demanded was 
absolute. Every aspirant for membership must 
seek first the Kingdom of God. And in order 
to enforce the demand of allegiance, or rather 
with an unconsciousness which contains . the 
finest evidence for its justice, He even assumed 
the title of King — a claim which in other cir- 
cumstances, and were these not the symbols of 
a higher royalty, seems so strangely foreign to 
one who is meek and lowly in heart. 

But this imperious claim of a Kingdom upon 
its members is not peculiar to Christianity. It is 
the law in all departments of Nature that every 
organism must live for its Kingdom. And in 
defining living for the higher Kingdom as the 
condition of living in it, Christ enunciates a 
principle which all Nature has prepared us to 
expect. Every province has its peculiar exac- 
tions, every Kingdom levies upon its subjects 
the tax of an exclusive obedience, a^nd pun- 
ishes disloyalty always with death. It was the 
neglect of this principle — that every organism 
must live for its Kingdom if it is to live in it — 
which first slowly depopulated the spiritual 
world. The example of its Founder ceased to 
find imitators, and the consecration of His early 
followers came to be regarded as a superfluous 
enthusiasm. And it is this same misconception 
of the fundamental principle of all Kingdoms 
that has deprived modern Christianity of its 
vitality. The failure to regard the exclusive 
claims of Christ as more than accidental, rhe- 
torical, or ideal ; the failure to discern the 



CLASSIFICATION. 375 

essential difference between his Kingdom and 
all other systems based on the lines of natural 
religion, and therefore merely Organic; in a 
word, the general neglect of the claims of Christ 
as the Founder of a new and higher Kingdom 
— these have taken the very heart from the 
religion of Christ and left its evangel without 
power to impress or bless the world. Until 
even religious men see the uniqueness of 
Christ's society, until they acknowledge to the 
full extent its claim to be nothing less than a 
new Kingdom, they will continue the hopeless 
attempt to live for two Kingdoms at once. 
And hence the value of a more explicit Classi- 
fication. For probably the most of the diffi- 
culties of trying to live the Christian life arises 
from attempting to half-live it. 

As a merely verbal matter, this identification 
of the Spiritual World with what are known to 
Science as Kingdoms, necessitates an explana- 
tion. The suggested relation of the Kingdom 
of Christ to the Mineral and Animal Kingdom 
does not, of course, depend upon the accident 
that the Spiritual World is named in the sacred 
writings by the same word. This certainly 
lends an appearance of fancy to the generaliza- 
tion : and one feels tempted at first to dismiss 
it with a smile. But, in truth, it is no mere 
play on the word Kingdom. Science demands 
the classification of every organism. And here 
is an organism of a unique kind, a living ener- 
getic spirit, a new creature which, by an act of 
generation, has been begotten of God. Starts 
ing from the point that the spiritual life is to 



376 CLASSIFICATION. 

be studied biologically, we must at once pro- 
ceed, as the first step in the scientific examina- 
tion of this organism, to enter it in its appro- 
priate class. Now two Kingdoms, at the 
present time, are known to Science — the Inor- 
ganic and the Organic. It does not belong to 
the Inorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It 
does not belong to the Organic Kingdom, 
because it is endowed with a kind of Life 
infinitely removed from either the vegetal or 
animal. Where, then, shall it be classed? We 
are left without an alternative. There being 
no Kingdom known to Science which can con- 
tain it, we must construct one. Or rather we 
m.ust include in the programme of Science a 
Kingdom already constructed but the place of 
which in science has not yet been recognized. 
That Kingdom is the Kingdom of God. 

Taking now this larger view of the content 
of science, we may leave the case of the indi- 
vidual and pass on to outline the scheme of 
Nature as a whole. The general conception 
will be as follows : — 

First, we find at the bottom of everything 
the Mineral or Inorganic Kingdom. Its char- 
acteristics are, first, that so far as the sphere 
above it is concerned, it is dead; second, that 
although dead, it furnishes the physical basis 
of life to the Kingdom next in order. It is 
thus absolutely essential to the Kingdom above 
it. And the more minutely the detailed struc- 
ture and ordering of the whole fabric are inves- 
tigated, it becomes increasingly apparent that 



CLASSIFICATION. 377 

the Inorganic Kingdom is the preparation for, 
and the prophecy of, the Organic. 

Second, we come to the world next in order, 
the world containing plant, and animal, and 
man, the Organic Kingdom. Its characteris- 
tics are, first, that so far as the sphere above it 
is concerned, it is dead; and, second, although 
dead, it supplies in turn the basis of life to the 
Kingdom next in order. And the more 
minutely the detailed structure and ordering 
of the whole fabric are investigated it is obvi- 
ous, in turn, that the Organic Kingdom is the 
preparation for, and the prophecy of, the Spir- 
itual. 

Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual 
Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What 
its characteristics are, relatively to any hypo- 
thetical higher Kingdom, necessarily remain 
unknown. That the Spiritual, in turn, may 
be the preparation for, and the prophecy of, 
something still higher, is not impossible. But 
the very conception of a Fourth Kingdom 
transcends us, and if it exists, the Spiritual 
organism, by the analogy, must remain at pres- 
ent wholly dead to it. 

The warrant for adding this Third Kingdom 
consists, as just stated, in the fact that there 
are organisms which from their peculiar ori- 
gin, nature, and destiny cannot be fitly entered 
in either of the two Kingdoms now know to 
science. The Second Kingdom is proclaimed 
by the advent upon the stage of the First, of 
once-born organisms. The Third is ushered 
in by the appearance, among these once-born 



378 CLASSIFICATION. 

organisms, of forms of life which have been 
born again — twice-born organisms. The clas- 
sification, therefore, is based, from the scien- 
tific side on certain facts of embryology and on 
the Law of Biogenesis ; and from the theolog- 
ical side on certain facts of experience and on 
the doctrine of Regeneration. To those who 
hold either to Biogenesis or to Regeneration, 
there is no escape from a Third Kingdom.* 

There is, in this conception of a high and 
spiritual organism rising out of the highest 
point of the Organic Kingdom, in the hy- 
pothesis of the Spiritual Kingdom itself, a 
Third Kingdom following the Second in se- 
quence as orderly as the Second follows the 
First, a Kingdom utilizing the materials of both 
the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their 
laws, and, above all, accounting for these lower 
Kingdoms in a legitimate way and comple- 
menting them in the only known way — there is 
in all this a suggestion of the greatest of mod- 
ern scientific doctrines, the Evolution hy- 
pothesis, too impressive to pass unnoticed. The 
strength of the doctrine of Evolution, at least 



* Philosophical classifications in this direction (see, for in- 
stance, Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to 
their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the 
biologist- any more than the above will wholly satisfy the phi- 
losopher. Both are needed. Rothe in his ''Aphorisms,"strikingly 
notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schop- 
fung immer aus der Auflosung der nachst niederen Stufe die 
nachst hohere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur 
Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schopferischen Einwirkung bildet. 
(Wie es denn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der 
Kreatur aussich selbst.) Aus"den zersetzten Elementen erheben 
sich das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus 
der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem 
in die Elemente zurucksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der 
Geist, das geistige Geschopf."^"Stille Stunden," p. 64. 



CLASSIFICATION. 379 

in its broader outlines, is now such that its 
verdict on any biological question is a consid- 
eration of moment. And if any further defense 
is needed for the idea of a Third Kingdom it 
may be found in the singular harmony of the 
whole conception with this great modern truth. 
It might even be asked whether a complete and 
consistent theory of Evolution does not really 
demand such a conception? Why should Evo- 
lution stop with the Organic? It is surely 
obvious that the complement of Evolution is 
Advolution, and the inquiry, Whence has all 
this system of things come? is, after all, of 
minor importance compared with the question, 
Whither does all this tend? Science, as such, 
may have little to say on such a question. 
And it is perhaps impossible, with such facul- 
ties as we now possess, to imagine an Evolution 
with a future as great as its past. So stupen- 
dous is the development from the atom to the 
man that no point can be fixed in the future as 
distant from what man is now as he is from 
the atom. But it has been given to Christian- 
ity to disclose the lines of a further Evolution. 
And if Science also professes to offer a further 
Evolution, not the most sanguine evolutionist 
will venture to contrast it, either as regards the 
dignity of its methods, the magnificence of its 
aims, or the certainty of its hopes, with the 
prospects of the Spiritual Kingdom. That 
Science has a prospect of some sort to hold out 
to man is not denied. But its limits are already 
marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after investi- 
gating its possibilities fully, tells us, **Evolu- 



380 CLASSIFICATION. 

tion has an impassable limit."* It is the dis- 
tinct claim of the third Kingdom that this limit 
is not final. Christianity opens a way to a 
further development — a development apart 
from which the magnificent past of Nature 
has been in vain, and without which Organic 
Evolution, in spite of the elaborateness of its 
processes and the vastness of its achievements, 
is simply a stupendous ciil de sac. Far as Na- 
ture carries on the task, vast as is the distance 
between the atom and the man, she has to lay 
down her tools when the work is just begun. 
Man, her most rich and finished product, mar- 
velous in his complexity, all but Divine in 
sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom not even 
a shapeless embryo. The old chain of proces- 
ses must begin again on the higher plane if 
there is to be a further Evolution. The high- 
est organism of the Second Kingdom — simple, 
immobile, dead as the inorganic crystal, 
towards the sphere above — must be vitalized 
afresh. Then from a mass of all but homo- 
geneous * 'protoplasm" the organism must pass 
through all the stages of differentiation and 
integration, growing in perfectness and beauty 
under the unfolding of the higher Evolution, 
tmtil it reaches the Infinite Complexity, the 
Infinite Sensibility, God. So the spiritual car- 
ries on the marvelous process to which all 
lower Nature ministers, and perfects it when 
the ministry of lower Nature fails. 

This conception of a further Evolution carries 
with it the final answer to the charge that, as 

* "First Principles," p. 440. 



CLASSIFICATION. 381 

regards morality, the Spiritual world has noth- 
ing to offer man that is not already within his 
reach. Will it be contended that a perfect 
morality is already within the reach of the nat- 
ural man? What product of the organic crea- 
tion has ever attained to the fullness of the 
stature of Him who is the Founder and Type 
of the Spiritual Kingdom? What do men know 
of the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or 
at what value do they even estimate them? 
Proved by results, it is surely already decided 
that on merely natural lines moral perfection 
is unattainable. And even Science is begin- 
ning to waken to the momentous truth that 
Man, the highest product of the Organic King- 
dom, is a disappointment. But even were it 
otherwise, if even in prospect the hopes of the 
Organic Kingdom could be justified, its stand- 
ard of beauty is not so high, nor, in spite of 
the dreams of Evolution, is its guarantee so 
certain. The goal of the organisms of the 
Spiritual World is nothing less than this — to 
be *'holy as He is holy, and pure as He is 
pure." And by the Law of Conformity to 
Type, their final perfection is secured. The 
inward nature must develop out according to its 
Type, until the consummation of oneness with 
God is reached. 

These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in 
the direction of Evolution are at least entitled 
to be carefully considered by Science. Chris- 
tianity defines the highest conceivable future 
for mankind. It satisfies the Law of Continu- 
ity. It guarantees the necessary conditions for 



382 CLASSIFICATION. 

carrying on the organism successfully, from 
stage to stage. It provides against the ten- 
dency to Degeneration. And, finally, instead 
of limiting the yearning hope of final perfec- 
tion to the organisms of a future age, — an age 
so remote that the hope for thousands of years 
must still be hopeless, — instead of inflicting^ 
this cruelty on intelligence mature enough to 
know perfection and earnest enough to wish it^ 
Christianity puts the prize within immediate 
reach of man. 

This attempt to incorporate the Spiritual 
Kingdom in the scheme of Evolution, may be 
met by what seems at first sight a fatal objec- 
tion. So far from the idea of a Spiritual King- 
dom being in harmony with the doctrine of 
Evolution, it may be said that it is violently 
opposed to it. It announces a new Kingdom 
starting off suddenly on a different plane and 
in direct violation of the primary principle of 
development. Instead of carrying the organic 
evolution further on its own lines theology at 
a given point interposes a sudden and hopeless 
barrier — the barrier between the natural and 
the spiritual — and insists that the evolutionary- 
process must begin again at the beginning. At 
this point, in fact. Nature 2iQt^ per saltum. This 
is no Evolution, but a Catastrophe — such a 
Catastrophe as must be fatal to any consistent 
development hypothesis. 

On the surface this objection seems final — but 
it is only on the surface. It arises from taking- 
a too narrow view of what Evolution is. It 
takes Evolution in zoology for Evolution as a 



CLASSIFICATION. 383 

whole. Evolution began, let us say, with some 
primeval nebulous mass in which lay potentially 
all future worlds. Under the evolutionary 
hand, the amorphous cloud broke up, con- 
densed, took definite shape, and in the line of 
true development assumed a gradually increas- 
ing- complexity. Finally there emerged the 
cooled and finished earth, highly differentiated, 
so to speak, complete and fully equipped. 
And what followed? Let it be well observed 
— a Catastrophe. Instead of carrying the pro- 
cess further, the Evolution, if this is Evolution, 
here also abruptly stops. A sudden and hope- 
less barrier — the barrier between the Inorganic 
and the Organic — interposes, and the process 
has to begin again at the beginning with the 
creation of Life. Here then is a barrier placed 
by Science at the close of the Inorganic similar 
to the barrier placed by Theology at the close 
of the Organic. Science has used every effort to 
abolish this first barrier, but there it still stands 
challenging the attention of the modern world, 
and no consistent theory of Evolution can fail 
to reckon with it. Any objection, then, to the 
Catastrophe introduced by Christianity be- 
tween the Natural and the Spiritual Kingdoms 
applies with equal force against the barrier 
which Science places between the Inorganic 
and the Organic. The reserve of Life in either 
case is a fact, and a fact of exceptional signifi- 
cance. 

What then becomes of Evolution' Do these 
two great barriers destroy it? By no means 
But they make it necessary to frame a larger 



381 CLASSIFICATION. 

doctrine. And the doctrine gains immeasur- 
ably by such an enlargement. For now the 
case stands thus: Evolution, in harmony with 
its own law that progress is from the simple to 
the complex, begins itself to pass towards the 
complex. The materialistic Evolution, so to 
speak, is a straight line. Making all else com- 
plex, it alone remains simple — unscientifically 
simple. But as Evolution unfolds everything 
else, it is now seen to be itself slowly unfold- 
ing. The straight line is coming out gradually 
in curves. At a given point a new force 
appears deflecting it; and at another given 
point a new force appears deflecting that. These 
points are not unrelated points ; these forces are 
not unrelated forces. The arrangement is still 
harmonious, and the development throughout 
obeys the evolutionary law in being from the 
general to the special, from the lower to the 
higher. What we are reaching, in short, is 
nothing less than the evolution of Evolution. 

Now to both Science and Christianity, and 
especially to Science, this enrichment of Evo- 
lution is important. And, on the part of 
Christianity, the contribution to the system of 
Nature of a second barrier is of real scientific 
value. At first it may seem merely to increase 
the difficulty. But in reality it abolishes it. 
However paradoxical it seems, it is neverthe- 
less the case that two barriers are more easy to 
understand than one, — two mysteries are less 
mysterious than a single mystery. For it re- 
quires two to constitute a harmony. One by 
itself is a Catastrophe. But, just as the recur- 



CLASSIFICATION. 385 

rence of an eclipse at different periods makes 
an eclipse no breach of Continuity; just as the 
fact that the astronomical conditions necessary 
to cause a Glacial Period will in the remote 
future again be fulfilled, constitutes the Great 
Ice Age a normal phenomenon ; so the recur- 
rence of two periods associated with special 
phenomena of Life, the second higher, and by 
the law necessarily higher, is no violation of 
the principle of Evolution. Thus, even in the 
matter of adding a second to the one barrier 
of Nature, the Third Kingdom may already 
claim to complement the Science of the Second. 
The overthrow of Spontaneous Generation has 
left a break in Continuity which continues to 
put Science to confusion. Alone, it is as ab- 
normal and perplexing to the intellect as the 
first eclipse. But if the Spiritual Kingdom can 
supply Science with a companion-phenome- 
non, the most exceptional thing in the scien- 
tific sphere falls within the domain of Law. 
This, however, is no more than might be ex- 
pected from a Third Kingdom. True to its 
place as the highest of the Kingdoms, it ought 
to embrace all that lies beneath and give to the 
First and Second their final explanation. 

How much more in the under-Kingdoms 
might be explained or illuminated upon this 
principle, however tempting might be the in- 
quiry, we cannot turn aside to ask. But the 
rank of the Third Kingdom in the order of 
Evolution implies that it holds the key to much 
that is obscure in the world around — much 
that, apart from it, must always remain ob- 

25 Natural Law 



386 CLASSIFICATION. 

scure. A single obvious instance will serve to 
illustrate the fertility of the method. What 
has this Kingdom to contribute to Science in 
regard to the problem of the origin of Life it- 
self? Taking this as an isolated phenomenon, 
neither the Second Kingdom, nor the Third, 
apart from revelation, has anything to pro- 
nounce. But when we observe the companion- 
phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the ques- 
tion is simplified. It will be disputed by none 
that the source of Life in the Spiritual World 
is God. And as the same Law of Biogenesis 
prevails in both spheres, we may reason from 
the higher to the lower and affirm it to be at 
least likely that the origin of life there has been 
the same. 

There remains yet one other objection of a 
somewhat different order, and which is only 
referred to because it is certain to be raised by 
those who fail to appreciate the distinctions of 
Biology. Those whose sympathies are rather 
with Philosophy than with Science may incline 
to dispute the allocation of so high an orga- 
nism as man to the merely vegetal and 
animal Kingdom. Recognizing the immense 
moral and intellectual distinctions between him 
and even the highest animal, they would intro- 
duce a third barrier between man and animal 
— a barrier even greater than that between the 
Inorganic and the Organic. Now, no science 
can be blind to these distinctions. The only 
question is whether they are of such a kind as 
to make it necessary to classify man in a separ- 
ate Kingdom. And to this the answer of Sci- 



CLASSIFICATION. 387 

ence is in the negative. Modern Science 
knows only two Kingdoms — the Inorganic and 
the Organic. A barrier between man and 
animal may be, but it is a different barrier from 
that which separates Inorganic from Organic. 
But even w^ere this to be denied, and in spite 
of all science it will be denied, it w^ould make 
no difference as regards the general question. 
It would merely interpose another Kingdom be- 
tween the Organic and the Spiritual, the other 
relations, remaining as before. Any one, there- 
fore, with a theory to support as to the excep- 
tional creation of the Human Race will find the 
present classification elastic enough for his 
purpose. Philosoph}^ of course, may propose 
another arrangement of the Kingdoms if it 
chooses. It is only contended that this is the 
order demanded by Biology. To add another 
Kingdom mid-way betw^een the Organic and 
the Spiritual, could that be justified at any 
future time on scientific grounds, would be a 
mere question of further detail. 

Studies in Classification, beginning with con- 
siderations of quality, usually end with a ref- 
erence to quantity. And though one would 
willingly terminate the inquiry on the thres- 
hold of such a subject, the example of Revela- 
tion not less than the analogies of Nature press 
for at least a general statement. 

The broad impression gathered frorn ^ the 
utterances of the Founder of the Spiritual 
Kingdom is that the number of organisms to 
be included in it is to be comparatively small. 
The outstanding characteristic of the new Soci- 



388 CLASSIFICATION. 

ety IS to be its selectness. **Many are called/* 
said Christ, **but few are chosen." And when 
one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of 
membership, and, on the other, observes the 
lives and aspirations of average men, the force 
of the verdict becomes apparent. In its bear- 
ing upon the general question, such a conclu- 
sion is not without suggestiveness. Here again 
is another evidence of the radical nature of 
Christianity. That **few are chosen'* indicates 
a deeper view of the relation of Christ's King- 
dom to the world, and stricter qualifications of 
membership, than lie on the surface or are 
allowed for in the ordinary practice of religion. 
The analogy of Nature upon this point is not 
less striking — it may be added, not less solemn. 
It is an open secret, to be read in a hundred 
analogies from the world around, that of the 
millions of possible entrants for advancement 
in any department of Nature the number ulti- 
mately selected for preferment is small. Here 
also "many are called and few are chosen." 
The analogies from the waste of seed, of pol- 
len, of human lives, are too familiar to be 
quoted. In certain details, possibly, these 
comparisons are inappropriate. But there are 
other analogies, wider and more just, which 
strike deeper into the system of Nature. A 
comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature 
discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen 
slowly contracts as we rise in the scale of 
being. Some mineral, but not all, becomes 
vegetable; some vegetable, but not all, be- 
comes animal; some animal, but not all, be- 



CLASSIFICATION. 389 

comes human; some human, but not all, 
becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At 
the base is the mineral, mos4; broad and sim- 
ple; the spiritual at the apex, smallest, but 
most highly differentiated. So form rises, 
above form, Kingdom above Kingdom. Quan- 
tity decreases as quality increases. 

The gravitation of the v/hole system of 
Nature towards quality is surely a phenomenon 
of commanding interest. And if among the 
more recent revelations of Nature there is one 
thing more significant for Religion than an- 
other, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of 
Kingdoms towards scarcer yet nobler forms, 
and simpler yet diviner ends. Of the early 
stage, the first development of the earth from 
the nebulous matrix of space. Science speaks 
with reserve. The second, the evolution of 
each individual from the simple protoplasmic 
cell to the formed adult, is proved. The still 
wider evolution, not of solitary individuals, but 
of all the individuals within each province — in 
the vegetable world from the unicellular cryp- 
togram to the highest phanerogam, in the ani- 
mal world from the amorphous amoeba to Man ' 
— is at least suspected, the gradual rise of types 
being at all events a fact. But now, at last, 
we see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. 
And that supreme law which has guarded the 
development from simple to complex in mat- 
ter, in individual, in sub-Kingdom, and in 
Kingdom, until only two or three great King- 
doms remain, now begin at the beginning 
again, directing the evolution of these million- 



390 CLASSIFICATION. 

peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or 
organisms. Thus, what applies to the individ- 
ual applies to the family, what applies to the 
family applies to the Kingdom, what applies to 
the Kingdom applies to the Kingdoms. And 
so, out of the infinite complexity there rises an 
infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing of a final 
unity, that of 

"One God, one law, one element. 

And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." * 

This is the final triumph of Continuity, the 
heart secret of Creation, the unspoken proph- 
ecy of Christianity. To Science, defining it as 
a working principle, this mighty process of 
amelioration is simply Evolution. To Christi- 
anity, discerning the end through the means, 
it is Redemption. These silent and patient 
processes, elaborating, eliminating, developing 
all from the first of time, conducting the evo- 
lution from millennium to millennium with 
unaltering purpose and unfaltering power, are 
the early stages in the redemptive work, the un- 
seen approach of that Kingdom whose strange 
mark is that it **cometh without observation." 
And these Kingdoms rising tier above tier in 
ever increasing sublimity and beauty, their 
foundations visibly fixed in the past, their pro- 
gress, and the direction of their progress, being 
facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since 
the Magi saw His star in the East, have never 
been wanting- from the firmament of truth, and 



* "In Memoriam." 



CLASSIFICATION. 391 

which in every age with growing clearness to 
the wise, and with ever-gathering mystery to 
the uninitiated, proclaim that ''the Kingdom 
of God is at hand. ' ' 

Finis. 



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POEMS OP PASSION. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
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These poems make life doubly sweet and cheerful. 
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Lord Byron's impassionate strains."— Parts Register. 

THREE WOMEN. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition— art binding, gold top, boxed, $1.50. 

Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
thrilling interest depicts the lives of three good and beautiful 
women in every phase of weakness^ passion^ pride, love, sympathy 
and tenderness. 

AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

**Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fascinating 
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A choice collection of recitationB, specially compiled for read- 
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*'Her name is a household word. Her great power lies in depict- 
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*'Power and pathos characterize this magnificent poem. A 
deep understanding of life and an intense sympathy are beauti- 
fully expressed." — Tribune. 

MEN, WOMEN AND EMOTIONS. (Prose.) 12mo, heavy 
enameled paper cover, 50 cents ; English cloth, $1.00. 
A skillful analysis of social habits, customs and follies. 
*'Her fame has reached all parts of the world, and her popular- 
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THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD. (Poems, songs and 

stories.) With over sixty original illustrations. Quarto, 

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